Tina Ginn | Preparing for the Worst

 

SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:

Tina, like many grievers, has found her passion in her pain. What started out as a career as a financial advisor, where she was well-versed in risk management, morphed into helping others prepare for the worst in their lives.

Having lived through a forest fire evacuation order, the quick decline of a dear friend’s health and death due to cancer, a traumatic car accident which later led to losing her job, to a subsequent divorce and estrangement with her children, Tina has learned the importance of connection and preparedness.

She brings her passion for helping people become prepared for the worst. She recognizes that the last thing people want to worry about, when tragedy strikes or when there are moments to make decisions, are the logistics of their lives.

Through her app, Your Backup Plan, she helps individuals get their lives in order so that, when tragedy or nature does strike, your life is in the palm of your hand. This not only makes your family’s lives easier if something happens to you but also your own if it’s you at the center of the unfortunate experience.

Tina says we shouldn’t wait until someone is dying, or we are dying, to prepare; by then, it’s too late. Additionally, the conversations you want to be having in these moments do not include the bills that need to be paid and how they’re paid. Also for example, where social media passwords are, what to do with a beloved collection, or a last will and testament. These issues and logistics can be documented in advance so that anyone close can pick up the pieces with less stress. Also, in turn, this allows for more time for deep connection when it counts.

RESOURCES/CONNECT:

• Website
• YouTube
•  Instagram | Facebook
• “In the Blink of an Eye”
• Emerging Blueprint [Launching July 2021]

Victoria Volk  00:00
Thank you for tuning in to grieving voices. Today, my guest is Tina Ginn of your backup plan. She helps put your life in one place in preparation of any unpredictable, unpredictable circumstance while taking the painful aftermath out of the tragedy. Thank you so much for being here, Tina.

Tina Ginn  00:22
Well, thank you so much for having me. We’re a little bit apart from each other today.

Victoria Volk  00:29
Yes.

Tina Ginn  00:30
I’m on the west coast in here in the central.

Victoria Volk  00:33
Yeah. And, you know, zoom knows no time or space, right?

Tina Ginn  00:39
It’s good.

Victoria Volk  00:40
Yeah

Tina Ginn  00:41
We can reach all our listeners.

Victoria Volk  00:43
We live in an amazing time. It’s COVID really put a damper on so many aspects of our lives. But I have found some silver linings in COVID. And that I was able to pursue a lot of different learning opportunities and things and I’m sure it’s connected you with many people, and my podcast has connected me with you know, many people, too. And that’s been the beautiful thing out of it. But yeah, so we are going to talk about grief today. Obviously, that’s the podcast grieving voices. And we’ll get to Tina’s passion work later in the episode. So, what brings you to grieving voices today?

Tina Ginn  01:23
Well, you know, Victoria, that it’s been very, I’ve had many different types of grief. And it started off with a very close friend of mine, who went into the hospital for tests, because she had a cough. And she didn’t really have any other symptoms. And her husband had called me, and they had $1 store in a small city, and said, I’m really busy at the store, can you pick her up after her tests? I said, absolutely. So, I waited to hear from him. And he said, she won’t be coming home. She’s staying in for more tests. So, the next day, I get a phone call that she has stage four cancer, lung cancer, and that she’s not coming home. And, and where she would be so I could go visit her. In the days when we could visit people. Never thought we’d ever hear that, ever, that you couldn’t visit someone in the hospital. But yeah, so I would go up in the elevator twice a week, and you know, my stomach would fall to the My, my stomach, I think would end up in my throat, and the doors of the elevator would open. And I would always be so worried and scared of what it was going to look like, how it was going to evolve, how it was going to change, because every day, it just perpetually changed so quickly that in front of me that it was scary. It’s scary to see someone disintegrate in front of you. And so, I, on one of my visits, I always wear some real t instead of hospital T and we sat outside on the patio, and she said you know, Tina, I just want to feel the breeze. I just want to hear the birds; I just want to see the blue sky. And that’s all and I want to be present with the person that I’m with. I don’t want to talk about did the accounting get finished. Did we pay the inventory? Did the bills get paid, I don’t want to talk about where the keys are for the shed, or who’s who bought the pet food, or what kind of pet food or I don’t want to talk about anything I just want to enjoy the moment. And that made a huge impact on me. Because it made me realize that nobody and that time wants to either for the person with the person in recovery or in. In a short-term death sentence sort of speak. We don’t want to be burdened by all the stuff. We don’t want to worry about who has a key and who does. We don’t want to worry about if the electricity bill is paid. We don’t we don’t care. We don’t care. We just want if the person’s in recovery, we want to be able to get that person better. And the only way to get the person better isn’t like stress and frustration and anxiety and where the stuff is and where’s their will and where’s their dog documents and who’s paid the bills. And we don’t want to worry about all that, we want to know that you are there present in the moment and sharing the love, because it’s only love that’s going to make us better. It’s only love that will innately create that recovery process, if at all possible. We had research done in the states of twin girls, who one was very weak, and the other one was stronger. And they had to be they were premature. And they put them in different little different bed caskets, you know, the little hospital beds, and the one was thriving really, really well. And the little one wasn’t. And every day that went on, it wasn’t getting any better. So, the nurse put the two of them together, and they clenched with each other, and they held each other, and the one helped the other one get better. And so that one then flourished. So it shows you that by being there, by holding the person’s hand, by listening to them by holding them by seeing them by and not regretting after the fact, when they’re gone, I should have cut I would have, I should have spoke to them more, I should have called them more, I should have went and brought food to the more I I should have sat with them longer, I should have spent the whole day with them. No, don’t, don’t do that to yourself. Enjoy the moment and be prepared for the unexpected before it happens not after. So that’s kind of where I came from when I created the app, so that people could be better prepared, and it would be easy. You just pick up your phone and put in your doctor’s appointment. And when you come out of the doctor’s office, you put what he said and take a picture of the prescription. So now you’re putting your life all in one place. You were the CEO of your life, you know where the documents are, you know where your medical history is, you know where your insurance documents are, you’ve taken photos of your home in case of a wildfire, which How many times do we have to deal with those every year? wildfires and floods it seems popular these days. So yeah, so that’s kind of brings me up till the last few years of me taking the time after I had a few episodes of grief myself, that it took me into another place as well, because I had to find myself again, and move forward and help other people to whether it’s healing, because this to me, helps you heal, it helps you heal because it doesn’t bring in the angry, you know, family fights, or the depression or the angry ness between family members. When you’re in that tragedy moment. You You don’t have time to think, you know, people react in so many different ways. Some people get mad, some people get sad. And when you get a family together, let’s let’s try and keep that family together and try to experience something that’s already looked after. When it’s all looked after already, then you don’t have those same worries and stress.

Victoria Volk  08:50
Yeah, we often find our passions in life through her personal experiences. Thank you for sharing about your friend. One thing I do want to highlight that you said and one thing I picked up on maybe you didn’t was that when you saw your friend when you were getting out of the elevator and you were talking about that experience, and you were afraid of what it would look like. And you refer to it as it in terms of the cancer, right? And did you feel like you’re trying to distance yourself from that, you know what I mean? Like trying to distance yourself from that, from that diagnosis of? Yeah, I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but I picked up on that. And so, can you share a little bit more about that what you were feeling?

Tina Ginn  09:46
I think the IT part for me was you know, it changed so quickly from someone sitting on the edge of the bed, to somebody lying in the bed with oxygen and then not hardly being able to speak it, it developed so quickly, that it scared me to think of what the it was going to look like not necessarily the cancer, but the experience. I think it was what I was meaning, you know, the experience that I’m sharing with her, the room, the smells, the whole experience, and I don’t think we we do that we don’t take time; you know from for me, I wasn’t concerned about any of the paperwork or of her life. I was there as a friend and a support and for some sort of healing. And that was my sole purpose. But when she said those things to me, it made me realize you can always expect the unexpected, because life is very, very fragile. We don’t know when we’re going to be here tomorrow. And I think once you’ve gone through something as similar to this, you realize that life is precious. And we don’t have all the time we think we have, you know, we we need to get as much preparation as we can for ourselves as well as those we love. As part of my backup plan app, I’ve created the emerging blueprint, and it’s a membership program to better educate you and your family. those you love around you, too. What things do you need to put together? You know, this is where I kind of started off with, because everybody knows they need a will. That’s about it. Um, some sometimes they say, oh, yeah, Tina, we need a power of attorney. Yes, you do. But what are the other things that you need? What, what is going to make those people you know, if you ended up in the hospital in a coma from COVID, for two months? How would someone get into your home? How would they pay your bills? Where do they where do you have your accounts? Where are your investments? Where’s your key to get in? And do you have pets? Does someone know how to feed them to someone know where the VAT is? All of these things of being prepared for whatever might happen. And I think COVID really woke us all up around the world, that life is precious, and we are not prepared. We truly aren’t.

Victoria Volk  12:44
Yeah, I’ve often found in my own family, you know, or when someone close to my family has passed away. When anyone really passes away that we mutually know, or, you know, then the conversations start happening. Well, you know, what, what would you like, where would you like to be buried? Or what are your wishes. And in that, I mean, oftentimes when we’re faced with a death, that’s we reflect on our own mortality. And so those questions come up during those times. And but what’s funny or not funny is that we don’t act on that. Right? How many people actually have those thoughts? And then they don’t act on it. I’m guilty. I’m totally guilty of this. And I’ve thought about that, too. Like, oh, my gosh, if something happened to me, it would be a nightmare for my family. Like, my husband is not tech savvy at all. He would struggle, he’d be on the struggle bus, in a lot of ways. Like, how would he let my client like, it’s important for me to, I want I would want my clients to know, you know, just all these different little nuances of having a business or just all the stuff I’m involved in, like, what would he do? And I’m not prepared, I’ll be the first to say it. I’m not prepared. He knows what my wishes are. And actually, this just came up the other day, because I’m currently going through an end-of-life doula training program. And one of the topics that came up was how, if if you had the opportunity to know you were dying, right? In the case of lung cancer, terminal illness, a really progressing disease that’s, you know, what do you want your end of days to look like? Do you want your body washed? You want your family to wash your body? How do you want your body honored after you pass? What do you want the end of days to look like? Who do you want there? You know, all these different questions that I really hadn’t given much thought to other other than don’t put a feeding tube in me. Don’t hook me up to you know, have Then a later, that’s not living to me. Right? So beyond that, though, I don’t have that in writing either. You know, and I think I actually I just read up on recently I was I remembered it vaguely, but I looked it up the Terry shearable. Like, it’s how you say her name. She was in a vegetative state for 17 years because her husband wanted the feeding tube removed, and her parents disagreed, and there was nothing in writing. And all he had was a statement she made. And yeah, that’s the case. Yeah. So what is the first thing that you recommend to somebody who, let’s say, has been diagnosed with a terminal illness? Where do you start?

Tina Ginn  15:54
Well, that’s why I created the emerging blueprint, because it starts with what documents that you need to find how to make a folder, how to put them in a safe place, so that if you had a wildfire, you can just grab them. But they’re also in the app. So we go through the process, there’s 12 modules. And then the first one, I mean, literally, you could just do the first one and of knowing what documents to put together and putting them together and getting them put into the app. After that, all of the extras are great to put you one step level better. Any module that you do, you’re going to be better prepared than the last one that you didn’t do. So, I always say to people, you know, one of the modules is just what bills need to get paid. A lot of times and 90% of relationships, partnerships, one pays the bills and the other one doesn’t. So if something happened to one or the other, or both, who pays the bills and how you pay the bills, the person needs to know how to do that in case of an emergency. So that’s like one of the one of the modules the other, there’s a library of videos of recordings from lawyers, notaries, around the world, even, it will get to the point in the program, where I’ll have a UK section, the United States section, a Canada section, so that you can go right to those sections to find out your exact details. But in the meantime, there’s a lot of preparation to get done. And it’s very, very easy to do when you have the papers in front of you. You know, the family conversation module is a worksheet that you can sit down with your family and say, go down and tick off the boxes and write down what that person wants. And you don’t even have to think well Do I have to know that? Do you know what you need until the time comes? Usually not. So, this makes it all nice and clear. You can print them off, you can write on them, you can do them on the computer, whatever is easier for you. So, in the last module is like the most exciting, the most creative part. I’m a Pisces. So, I always invent and create things. But I always have to throw that little bit of extra fun firmness in there. And it’s called the treasure box. And so, it allows you to either do it on a weekly basis, or a monthly basis or an annual basis. Or even just as events unfold. You could add them into your treasure box, whatever suits you. Everyone’s different, but that could be of your five senses. So, smell sight, feel, touch, and see and seeing it hearing it. So, it could be anything that you want to leave as a legacy because not all legacies are money. It could be you know, a special shirt. There’s nothing more special when someone passes away than finding a piece of clothing with their aftershave on it or their perfume on it or their smell. You just want to hold it like a teddy bear and never let it go. So, it’s all of these things that you can add to your treasure box that might be jewelry or artwork collection. I have a client who’s he his hobby is fire trucks Believe it or not, he has a collection of fire trucks. I’m not sure why. But so when you think About how does someone prepare, you know, you don’t just have a collection of fire trucks and then leave your spouse not knowing what it’s worth, what the parts are worth who to contact, if something happened to you, because believe it or not, if you put it out in the newspaper, and you tried to sell it after, there’s lots of takers from from the wife, who’s selling all the collection of collectible items, so you don’t want to go down that road. So yeah, so it’s these kinds of preparations of items where you want to maybe throw in all your grandma’s recipes and pass them down and, or, you know, so every time they make those cookies, it’s gonna smell like grandma’s house, or mom’s house or aunt Sue’s house. So, it’s all of those feelings that I wanted to add in there so that people can make grieving easier. If that’s a thing, because I’m not really sure if it can ever be easy. But I feel like when you have things that you can attach yourself to, maybe it’s music, maybe they sing, maybe they write poetry, maybe they write stories. Maybe it’s a blog or podcast that they’ve been writing, and they would like it passed down to the daughter or the son to continue it. You know what, whatever that looks like. Those are all kinds of things that you want to pass down to your family or friends. So yeah, that’s, that’s the fun part. I think that’s the exciting, like, what can I think of to put in there?

Victoria Volk  21:50
I love that I’m a Pisces too. When’s your birthday?

Tina Ginn  21:55
25th of February.

Victoria Volk  21:56
Okay, March 5th, I just had mine.

Tina Ginn  22:00
Happy birthday!

Victoria Volk  22:01
Thank you happy belated to you. So, you speak a lot of experience in the realm of grief. And I imagine because grief is cumulative, and it’s cumulatively negative. And there’s more than 40 plus different types of losses. What have been your other grieving experiences that have kind of solidified what you’re already doing?

Tina Ginn  22:31
It’s really solidified what I’m doing now. Because when I created the app, it took me a long time, because I’m just one person. So, if I was the inventor, I was the creator, I was the diagram, I was the architect. You know, I was everything. It’s like running a motel, and literally going and rushing the washrooms and signing the people into the room. Like you are everywhere. So, after that, I had a horrific car accident in 2017. And I was hit head on. And I was happy that I was, you know, when I touched myself that I’m like, Okay, I’m still here, I’m, I’m in one piece, and my face is still my face. That was my main concern. But I had a lot of recovery after and I didn’t realize even from broken bones, and physiotherapy on your body parts, that no one is helping your brain. No one’s there for your brain injury, nobody’s there for your concussion. And so, I had to really work on all of those things. And when I realized that after 30 years of marriage, and horrific car accident, I then went on disability after realizing that I just couldn’t seem to even though I was walking around with crutches, and getting driven everywhere, because I had a cast on my foot, I couldn’t drive. I realized that I just couldn’t do my job, which was insurance at the time at a bank. And after four months, I realized after fixing, getting out of my crutches and out of my cast and being able to drive again, that I couldn’t do my job, I couldn’t multitask. I couldn’t, I could do my job with my eyes closed, but I couldn’t do all the multi tasks that there were to do. So, I decided to take go on disability and take some time and get recovered. And so I went back after seven months, and they let me go. And so, then I had a battle with that. And then I realized that I wasn’t getting the support at home. My girls had already been through university, they’ve already left the home. Both are doing their own thing. And it was just myself and my ex-husband. And I just said, you know, this isn’t working for me, I’m not getting the support. And I need something else. And so, I said, It’s time that, you know, I think we aren’t in love with each other. We love each other, but we’re not in love with each other. And I think there’s a difference there. So, we continued on with, we went for counseling, and that didn’t work. It might work for some couples. And we went through with a separation and then a divorce. And then, so after that, I lost contact with my girls. So, they’re in their late 20s. And they decided to go on their merry way. So, I guess I’ve had many different types of losses, many types of grieving. One hurts more than the other, to be honest. But I think they each hurt in a different way. And so, I can feel everybody’s I want to say torture, because it feels like torture. No, I can feel everybody’s feelings of what, how they’re supposed to feel what? I don’t know why with grief; we always think of what we’re supposed to feel. There is no supposed to anything. It’s it’s I think everybody feels different. Because we’ve all had different experiences.

Victoria Volk  26:48
I think at some point, we all feel crazy, though. Like you’re going crazy.

Tina Ginn  26:53
Yeah.

Victoria Volk  26:54
Like, why can I just like, get my crap together? You know that? I mean, that’s how I feel like Why can’t I just get my crap together? I’m sorry, what?

Tina Ginn  27:02
Why can’t I understand this? Why can’t I get my head wrapped around this?

Victoria Volk  27:06
Right? And in your experience of, I mean, there’s ripples, so many ripples in your story of like one loss just leads to another loss and another loss and it compounds it keeps adding rocks to your backpack? And so how, how have you? What has coping look like for you?

Tina Ginn  27:33
Well, I mean, it was definitely tough at first. But I think, by me, telling people stories, and really focusing on healing, helping people heal, with getting better prepared for the inevitable, because we all know, something is gonna happen to each one of us. You know, sometimes, like myself, I had multiple things happen, because obviously, the universe was telling me, hey, Tina, you’re not getting it yet. We’re gonna hit you with another one. And you’re still not getting it yet. So, we’re gonna hit you again. So, I think it brought me to where I’m supposed to be and what I’m supposed to be doing. And it’s created an outlet for me to if it helps me heal by me helping other people heal. By Me, helping people hear multiple stories of different things of what happens in your life, right can turn your life around, that can turn it upside down. You know, there’s such a little thing of losing your wallet, to losing your husband there on very different ends of emergency. And very different ends of the spectrum in the ways of how someone would actually grieve. But the losing the wallet is also an emergency to a lot of people. Because we we know what will happen, right? It’s but it’s there are different emergencies. And I wanted to cover all of them. Because by me going through these experiences, it must have given me that, that compassion and that empathy for people that also have to go through it. And by me creating something to make it even easier for individuals. You know, what I would like to eventually do with your backup plan is have a TV show where I’m traveling to the Ukraine. I’m traveling to Germany, I’m traveling to China, I’m traveling to United States. I’m traveling to these different places to show people how they get prepared for the unexpected in that place, you know that country, because I think that would be really interesting to see all the different cultures of how they, how they look at not necessarily life, but how they look at looking after their family member, you know, what does that look like for them? What does the cemeteries look like, in that country? What are the funerals look like in that place? You know, all of those types of things, I think it would be really interesting. And it would take people to a different level, to understand that it’s everywhere, it’s, it’s just like COVID, it’s everywhere, it’s touched everybody. And it’s not, we’re not going to die, depending on our age, has nothing to do with age has nothing to do the color of our skin. It has nothing to do with anything. And so, when people say, well, who is your target market, or who should be buying your app, I say anybody and everybody who has stuff. And some people say, well, I don’t need a will, because I don’t have anything. Well, that’s not true, either. So, we need to be better prepared, because there’s even the smallest, the littlest things that are very complicated, like social media, you know, if if you have an Instagram account, it’s very difficult to get your son’s Instagram account, and cancel it. Without him allowing you to do that, after he’s passed, who wants the social media accounts left open like that. They’re a prime target for theft, for identity theft, and because they’re not being used. So, it’s all of these social media things, it’s all of these types of things that makes your life easier, even when you think you don’t have very much, you have lots of things, digital accounts, now, we don’t get mail anymore, we don’t get any bills, hydro bills, all comes digitally now. So we need to have a place where those digital accounts can be found by someone just by looking at the right place, in one place for it to be they’re not trying to look in that drawer in that closet and that cupboard. And you know, who knows where that’s usually the way? It’s like, where would she keep it? Where would it be?

Victoria Volk  32:49
Well, folks, if you are not convinced that you’re not prepared. I’m sure you are now. Because I mean, what better sales pitch and I know it’s not a sales pitch, because I can feel it in your heart and you’re speaking and in the conviction in your voice of how much this means to you and how important it is. And I to understand how important it is it’s it’s the taking the action, it’s, you know, taking that step. And so, it is the app itself is available in App Store, correct?

Tina Ginn  33:27
And the launch will be available in a few weeks. And it will be on the website as well.

Victoria Volk  33:34
Okay, and I’ll be sure to link to that because this episode won’t actually air for a while. And so, you’ll probably find the link in the show notes for that.

Tina Ginn  33:44
It’s a lot to comprehend, isn’t it?

Victoria Volk  33:47
I know there’s more to this. I know we can talk a lot more about just I mean the on the unpreparedness aspect of loss and and the ripples of that because like you said, it creates stress and frustration of those left behind when well what are we doing in the repercussion of that, like let’s say you don’t get that bill paid like you have no idea where to pay that bill. You get overage charges, you get interest charged, you get late fees, and then all of a sudden, a $300 bill becomes an $800 bill because because you simply don’t know it exists or where to pay it right? And I mean, I flooded I when I was in my early 20s, I flooded out of my apartment. My mail was not for whatever reason I had a credit card bill that was not forwarded, or I didn’t receive it. That’s what happened to me all of a sudden, I’m you know 21 years old, and you know making I don’t even know what minimum wage is back then. Maybe five, six bucks an hour. I mean really. Um, but I lived in grout, you know, like I had a walkout patio or a walkout, you know, it was the ground level and flooded and had to move. And yeah, all of a sudden, I think it was like a $400 bill became like over $800. And I, I $800 to me when I was 21, that was a lot of money. Yeah, that was a lot of money. But that was just a consequence of me just not being prepared and, you know, lack of preparedness, I suppose. But, you know, something would have happened to me, then who would have been? What, you know, what would have happened with that build. So, you’re driven the message home to me. And I’m, I definitely will be giving this much more thought after, after today, for sure.

Tina Ginn  35:45
It’s about being educated. Really, you know, because at first, I thought, Oh, you know, everyone can use the app. Well, the app is there. But it really helps. And I suspect it’s a lot for women, mainly, because we like to build our Nast. And we like to be educated. We like to know why we’re doing things. It seems like that anyways, whether it’s true or not, I’m not sure but and so that’s when I made the emerging blueprint, because that way people can go watch a 20 minute video, you know, they can go watch another module to find out about life insurance, or find out more about car insurance or find out more about house insurance or tips on a little video on talking to a house insurance person agent talking about that, or, you know, all of these different little educational parts that we truly don’t really know if we know that makes sense. Is that a thing?

Victoria Volk  36:48
Well, can you speak to that a little bit, just the fact that I want to circle back to the fact that you were married for 30 years, and then found yourself on your own. And so, you know, you don’t have that backup, you don’t have that support, you don’t have that. If he takes care of that I take care of this, all of a sudden, I’m taking care of everything, you’re taking care of everything. And so, can you speak to what that was like, because I don’t know what that’s like?

Tina Ginn  37:19
Well, I’ve never been on my own. So, it was very, very strange. And my girls would go everywhere with me, like we went shopping, grocery shopping, clothes shopping at like literally anything. They played avid softball, they got softball scholarships, they, I wanted to ensure that they were in a great place to get really good education and experience life experience. But for whatever happened to us, I’m not really sure. But maybe one day, they might hear this or see this or realize that, you know, don’t talk to somebody and wait too long. Because you don’t know what tomorrow will bring. You don’t know if that person is going to be there tomorrow. You know, you don’t, as a mom, you worry about your kids, even if you don’t see them every single day. But from a kid’s perspective to a mom, they’re on their own, they’re doing their thing. I’m sure they’re not thinking every day about their parents. You know, remember those days, but it’s like when you’re in your 20s. I don’t know, I think by me sharing my experiences now. It’s given me motivation and inspiration to help others. I’ve had too many clients call me at the edge of a deathbed of their parents usually saying how do I get where their bank accounts are? Tina? Where do I find out where their documents are? Where’s this? Where’s that? And my answer every single time is it’s too late. You don’t wait until they’re dying to find out anything. Because when the person is actually dying, they think that they’re not. There are not going to die. And why are you asking me those questions? So, it’s too late. You have to do these things. When everybody is fine. Everyone’s healthy or somewhat healthy. So even if like you said with your question, if you found out you have cancer, these are all things that you can get better prepared for either for yourself, as well as those that you love and care about around you. Because if something happened to them, you’re in the same boat looking after them. So, you might as well have them prepared to so yeah, it’s it’s So like a little family circle, like I like to call it, what will happen with my kids? Um, I’m not really sure, I hope that it’s not going to be a tragedy that brings them back to their mother. I wouldn’t want to wish that on anybody. I would hope that it would just be something they’ve seen or heard or a movie, that they go, like oh goes on and says, what are we doing? You know, life’s too short. This is ridiculous. So, we’ll see. We’ll see where it goes.

Victoria Volk  40:37
I’m sorry that that’s your experience. Right now. I can’t imagine as a mom; I have two girls and a boy. And I just what I think about now is Gosh, I hope they really love each other and get along when they’re older, that they know they have each other that they really look to each other for support. But it never has crossed my mind. Gee, I hope they want to come home. I hope they want to see me.

Tina Ginn  41:05
Yeah, it puts it right there.

Victoria Volk  41:08
Yeah, so I’m so sorry.

Tina Ginn  41:10
Well, it’s a lesson somewhere in there for all of us involved. Not sure what we’re supposed to learn. But there is a lesson in it somewhere.

Victoria Volk  41:19
I want to mention to something you mentioned about when they’re sitting at their parents’ deathbed, and they are in denial of their loved one dying, that was actually just brought up in my end of life, doula training, and how often that is the case where people deny the inevitable, they deny what’s actually happening. And I can speak from an advanced grief recovery methods specialist point of view, and also someone who watched their parent die, in that it separates you from the experience, when you are unable to acknowledge what is happening and what is inevitable. It keeps you from really embracing what’s possible in that moment. And what I’ve come to learn in the very short start of my training for the end-of-life doula is that it can be a very beautiful experience. And it’s very empowering, to really engage and put yourself in that experience with your whole heart. And you can’t do that if you’re denying what’s happening. So, I just wanted to bring that up.

Tina Ginn  42:34
That’s a good point. Because you also can’t be there like we talked about, if you’re worried about all the other stuff.

Victoria Volk  42:42
Yep. Exactly, exactly.

Tina Ginn  42:46
Fear, and you’re worried and you’re stressed and all of these things and, and it’s like being hit by a car. You know it, I wrote a book, it’s called in the blink of an eye. And it truly is, it’s in the blink of an eye. Even if you’ve been someone’s been suffering with cancer for six months, and then they pass away. At six-month mark, it’s still really in the blink of an eye.

Victoria Volk  43:14
It’s still sudden.

Tina Ginn  43:17
It just happens, even though you think you’re prepared. But are you?

Victoria Volk  43:23
Yeah, I just actually that came up not that long ago, how, even if you have the time, and you’re given that blessing of time to know that that’s what’s going to happen that you know, and doctors don’t get it all right all the time, oh, you have three months to live and then you live two years, you know, they don’t know at all, but I digress. Knowing that there’s an end cap right, to your life that’s coming changes the perspective and how you behave and act and the conversations you want to have and how you engage with life and and it’s just unfortunate, I find that it takes something tragic like that for us to really wake up.

Tina Ginn  44:03
And it does. Not sure why.

Victoria Volk  44:08
Yeah. Part of the life lesson that we each have to walk I suppose. What brings you the most joy nowadays?

Tina Ginn  44:16
ah, talking to the wonderful people like yourself all over the world every single week, hearing their stories and hearing their inspirations and helping people hearing their stories about you know, what’s happened with them and how it’s changed their lives and it’s so breathtaking. It’s it’s just so the experiences I can’t even have words for really, it’s it’s just, it makes you tingle really does. Because, you know, I’ve just taken something that you say well, why People say, well, there’s lots of stuff if you die, there’s lots of things. There’s grief counselors, and there’s all sorts of executor type of things. And there’s booklets, and all of that kind of stuff, but there’s nothing for the whole picture. There’s nothing for a car accident, there’s nothing for just going in for surgery and not really coming out in two or three days. You know, there’s nothing for losing your wallet. There’s nothing for a five-minute evacuation notice for wildfire. There’s all of these hurricanes, tornadoes, you know, there’s all of these types of tragedies, the cancer word, stroke, heart attack, there’s all of these experiences that we’re all going to have in some shape, or form. And I just want to help people make it easier. You know, if it can be easier, let’s do it because COVID has changed you lives.

Victoria Volk  46:01
Just think about the time to I’m just, when I think about, okay, if I had this app, or my loved ones had this app, the time that you spend in conversation, like you mentioned before, wasted, breath on things that really don’t matter, but still do need to be addressed. You could be talking about things that really are matters of the heart, that really do matter in that moment, right?

Tina Ginn  46:31
Or special toy that they played with, or their teddy bear or when did they learn how to ride a bike and all these little stories that you can help that person that is passing? Be there in the moment not say, hey, Mom, you know, did you tell me where those bank accounts are?

Victoria Volk  46:51
Right? Yeah, I mean, that’s yeah, if if only for one reason to be prepared, right? Is to have a quality of conversation when it matters.

Tina Ginn  47:05
Well, I’m make your life easier, even for yourself. If you had a five-minute evacuation, and you’re running around the house. Are you running around taking photos or you write videos? Are you running around not knowing what to grab? Like, what do you grab? photos? Do you grab documents like clothing? What do you grab, and if you don’t have that go to bag, then you know it’s just craziness and I’ve even had the five minute evacuation notice in the Okanagan and BC. And it’s not fun because you can smell it, you know, it’s it’s, it’s like the, the experience that we’ve all had with our cities of being closed down. It’s that eeriness, it’s that smoke where you can’t see the sun, it’s so smoky. And the bits of the fire are floating in the air, like from the trees, which, in fact, go and float somewhere else and start a fire somewhere else. But there’s all of this, you know, you can’t breathe, you can’t see you can’t smell you can smell it. It’s It’s so eerie. And here you are in that moment, trying to figure out what to grab out of your house.

Victoria Volk  48:22
That’s traumatic. It’s traumatic, I’m sure. Well, thank you for the work that you’re doing. I’m passionate about education around grief, obviously, soon around, end of life. I’m going to be speaking a lot more about that, I’m sure. And so, thank you for the work that you do. I would love to include your app as a resource on my website. Yeah, there was another gentleman, he was a guest on my podcast, too. He created an app for memories. Actually, after cloud, it’s called think there’s just beautiful things that can come out of the experience of grief and wonderful creators like yourself. So, thank you for creating this to make lives easier.

Tina Ginn  49:16
It truly is my passion. I feel it from every part of my soul. I think it’s definitely it’s just so exciting every day to think who you’re going to touch today and who you’re going to help.

Victoria Volk  49:35
Is there anything else you would like to share?

Tina Ginn  49:38
just you know, during COVID, it’s given us a very different experience than what we’re used to. This is our new normal and if anybody’s listening any listeners out there and I usually say this in most of my podcasts as well, but there’s someone special in your mind right now. someone that you love it care about on your mind. Reach Out and text them, call them message them today and tell them how much you love them. Because you never know what tomorrow will bring.

Victoria Volk  50:12
We don’t, we don’t. Where can people reach out to you if they would like to get in touch

Tina Ginn  50:19
Well, we have your backupplan.ca is the website and I’m on Instagram, your backup plan. Facebook, I have a Facebook group as well as a page, your backup plan, LinkedIn, Twitter, G, jeez, I’m on everything. I am everywhere.

Victoria Volk  50:42
Well, I will put some links in the show notes where people can find you to the app and also to your website. I will link all of that in the show notes in your book as well. In the blink of an eye, I was even going to ask you kind of I hear a book rumbling in here you came out with you have a book and I thought when you mentioned the TV show, I thought Hmm, maybe you could start with a YouTube channel. Are you on YouTube? You are on YouTube. Okay. And that’s on your pod on your website as well linked on your website as well.

Tina Ginn  51:14
Yeah, YouTube, it’s your backup plan.

Victoria Volk  51:21
Okay. Awesome. Thank you again for being here. Tina, thank you. Thank you for sharing your story and for the work that you’re putting out in the world.

Tina Ginn  51:29
Thank you for the opportunity. I love speaking about it and I love telling people that it can be easier. And this is how.

Victoria Volk  51:39
And remember when you unleash your heart you unleash your life. Much love.