Dr. Christiane Schroeter [00:00:00]:
Welcome back to the Happy Healthy Hustle. Here we are with another amazing episode and we have a wonderful guest here today. We have Samantha Bradshaw. And I'm going to let her introduce her herself and I can't wait to hear from her.

Samantha Bradshaw [00:00:14]:
Hi there. So my name is Samantha Bradshaw. I am the digital nomad trademark lawyer, mother of kittens, foster mom, all the things. And I'm super excited to have a chat with y'all today.

Dr. Christiane Schroeter [00:00:28]:
Oh, thank you so much, Samantha. And of course it's always great in the introduction when we get already a little bit hint at what we're going to be expecting here today. What do you think is your superpower?

Samantha Bradshaw [00:00:40]:
I think everybody has a couple superpowers, but the one that's front of my mind right now because at the time of this recording we're between us Thanksgiving and us Christmas. So my superpower that's very much. There's papers all around me about it is I make spreadsheets. So that way I can single handedly do Thanksgiving for 60 people. Single handedly baked 300 cookies in 24 hours to give out as Christmas gifts.

Dr. Christiane Schroeter [00:01:06]:
Oh, I love that. So you're like a spreadsheet. Spreadsheet. Let me come up with a, with a sassy title because that's one of my superpowers was come up with these fun little titles for things. Spreadsheet fairy. That doesn't really sound quite right yet, but something along these lines. Yes.

Samantha Bradshaw [00:01:23]:
Yeah, something like that. And the spreadsheets, I mean they're kind of intense. I'm very proud of them though. It's essentially got a tab where it says like the name of the recipe, whether that be a side dish for Thanksgiving or the type of cookie that I'm doing says how many people it serves, how many cookies it makes, I put in how many people are coming. Or auto calculates it based on my like recipients or attendees list. And then it tells me it has an ingredients list. So it gives me a shopping list depending on how many times I had to multiply that recipe. I've also got it like a yes and no column.

Samantha Bradshaw [00:01:53]:
So if I already have it in my pantry and I don't need to go buy that thing. And then I've got a task list that's auto generated based on when I want it to be done. So it tells me when everything needs to be done beforehand. So on the day of, I don't think I just follow my spreadsheet.

Dr. Christiane Schroeter [00:02:06]:
Oh my gosh. Actually when I have this spreadsheet right now. Did you ever think about sharing this.

Samantha Bradshaw [00:02:10]:
Here's a spreadsheet. Yeah, not a problem.

Dr. Christiane Schroeter [00:02:12]:
I could definitely share this out. I mean, this is something that I think more of us need in our lives. You mentioned, obviously we are between holidays, but that also means that nobody has time. And secondly, of course, that we all trying to get more organized for the New Year's. Right. So that's always like the time when we are maybe purging things and of course, maybe also making more time to spend some time with loved ones. Love that.

Samantha Bradshaw [00:02:36]:
Yeah. Rather than trying to multiply recipes for your grandmother's chocolate chip cookie recipe three times in your head and see whether you have it in your pantry or not. No, I'm good. Don't need to do that. Don't need to waste my time doing that.

Dr. Christiane Schroeter [00:02:47]:
What is your favorite recipe as far as cookies?

Samantha Bradshaw [00:02:50]:
Oh, I. My. My favorite is. Is probably my grandmother's chocolate chip recipe. I've adjusted it a little bit over the years based on some science, but it's. It's a solid one. Yeah.

Dr. Christiane Schroeter [00:03:00]:
Good one. Yep. Can't wait to get my hands on that spreadsheet in the task list and the shopping list. And I actually love a good spreadsheet as well. So this is going to be a little Christmas nugget coming my way. It's like an Advent calendar. I can't wait. I can't wait.

Dr. Christiane Schroeter [00:03:17]:
Well, let's talk a little bit. So we have the spreadsheet superpower. Oh, that was a good word. The spreadsheet superpower right there. And now let's talk a little bit about challenges. So maybe some darker times in your life, if you could identify the one that was the most challenging time in your life, what was it, and how did you overcome that?

Samantha Bradshaw [00:03:39]:
Yeah. So I think life has seasons. Right. And what may be challenging today isn't going to be challenging 10 years from now. Right. It's always better to speak from scars than fresh wounds. But what was surprisingly challenging, and I think for me, this. This was a shocker.

Samantha Bradshaw [00:04:00]:
When my mother passed away a couple years ago, I was executor of her estate. Which means that whenever you pass away and you write a will, you write somebody in your will that says, and you say you want them to be the ones managing everything. Right. They have to close down all of your accounts. They have to figure out where your credit cards are, they have to make all the payments, they have to file the accounting with the city, so that way no one's stealing money, and they have to distribute everything to the family according to the will. And as the only person with an advanced degree in my family, and certainly as the only lawyer, I understand why I was like the obvious choice to do that. I never imagined the admin work that would come with it and I never imagined the amount of feelings of personal negotiations I would have to have with every member of the family to make sure that everybody felt seen, everybody felt heard while still trying to respect her wishes that were written out in her own will. Balancing that while running a business, while trying to have my own life, while trying to be a decent wife, friend, partner, all of these things.

Samantha Bradshaw [00:05:14]:
Right. It was, it was a part time job that I did not ask for.

Dr. Christiane Schroeter [00:05:20]:
Yeah, you're bringing up a good point. Sometimes when we look at tasks we don't is immediately know that there is emotional luggage associated with it. Right. I sometimes compare luggage. You know when you are standing at the airport and you see all these black suitcases that arrive, that when we actually open a suitcase and there's all these personal items in it that people. Even though from the outside it looks like it should be a task that has certain steps like a spreadsheet that you follow, but when you actually open it and you peel it back, it becomes really emotional. And there's a lot of different nuances to this that you just don't follow a spreadsheet because there's more time that you've just spent on a decision than just saying, okay, this is what we do here, this is what we do there. And I totally appreciate you actually saying how draining this was on you because you were also healing at that time from the passing of your mother.

Dr. Christiane Schroeter [00:06:19]:
So I'm really sorry that you had to deal with that. And now as you mentioned, looking back, this is something that you're really glad that you overcame it. But at the same time, going through it at that time was probably completely unexpected. How challenging that time really was.

Samantha Bradshaw [00:06:36]:
Yeah. And I mean, particularly when I say it's a part time job, I truly mean this took some weeks, 40 hours of my week, most weeks it took at least 15. I genuinely had a part time job that I did not budget time for, which is something when, when you think about it, when you're thinking about closing up someone's affairs, you're like, okay, if your parents are fortunate enough to own a house, you're like, okay, we have to figure out if we want to sell the house or if somebody in the family is going to move into it. Right. You have to go find the bank accounts, you have to find the credit cards, make sure they've been paid. You have to shut off the utilities or transfer them. All of these things sound simple enough until you realize that you're playing an investigator into somebody else's life. Right.

Samantha Bradshaw [00:07:22]:
You're having to figure out all of the things that the state wants you to shut down for them. And you're probably going to run into a bunch of things along the way that you did not want to know about your parents, because somebody has got to empty the house. You may not want to know everything that's in there. You may not want to deal with it. Every single decision about it becomes more loaded than it seems on the surface.

Dr. Christiane Schroeter [00:07:49]:
We went through the same experience when my father passed away, and we recently sold the house, too, and it was in another country as well. I really honor that you went through this while you're healing. Sometimes I say it's the worst moment to make decisions because you have to have that clear head, and you really are not in that condition to do this. So this is very draining. So I have great respect for you that you went through this.

Samantha Bradshaw [00:08:17]:
I appreciate that. And I think. I think it's an important one to share because, I mean, it's. There's nothing as certain as death and taxes. Right. So most people, if they haven't gone through this yet, are going to at some point. It becomes a relatively universal experience. Right.

Samantha Bradshaw [00:08:35]:
And for type A people like us who love spreadsheets, it's not the most natural thing to deal with. So being able to kind of split your brain so you can grieve, so you can deal with that emotional side of things while still having that type A spreadsheet checklist, making sure we're getting everything done and submitted and sent off to the right people. It has to happen at the same time.

Dr. Christiane Schroeter [00:09:00]:
And you always try to also respect what that person actually wanted that happens with those things. So you're like, well, I could just get a dumpster and put everything in.

Samantha Bradshaw [00:09:10]:
But it certainly would have been easier.

Dr. Christiane Schroeter [00:09:12]:
Yeah, would be easier, you know? But then at the same time, is that really respectful to that person that passed away and just putting all their personal belongings in a dumpster? Maybe not. It's easy, but it's maybe not something that, looking back on, do you really want to do? Right. Can you live with that? Yeah.

Samantha Bradshaw [00:09:30]:
At least for me, there was a. There was an added level of really trying to be, at first, taking into account what folks in the family might be personally connected with, what things might be sentimental to them. But you're making guesses, Right. Unless they're there with you, which cannot always be the case for some people. But also trying to be sustainable in this. Right. That place setting and dishes for 16 people. That made perfect sense in that house.

Samantha Bradshaw [00:09:56]:
Everybody else already has their own plates and dishes. Do we really need that anymore? It certainly would have been easier to dump it into the trash. But donating it to, you know, the. The thrift store down the road that uses their money to fund the cat shelter on the other side of town. Okay, now I've got to load it up in the car. I've got to drive it down to the thrift store. I've got to drop it off in there. I've got to get a receipt because we've got to file accounting for all of this with the city.

Samantha Bradshaw [00:10:21]:
But it's going to go somewhere good. But that's just taken me 20 minutes. Right. And that's for one thing in the house. 1. And that's got to happen for everything. Everything. It's.

Samantha Bradshaw [00:10:34]:
It's a lot.

Dr. Christiane Schroeter [00:10:36]:
Yeah. That's a really important topic. And for everybody that's listening right now, that maybe is a good reminder to use that holiday season when you maybe have a little bit of free time from your job and maybe sit down and look through some of your belongings, maybe look through your electronic files and get them in order. Maybe make sure there is a will or anything that's accessible for somebody that maybe they can tune in and plug in and see what you want to have with those personal things.

Samantha Bradshaw [00:11:06]:
Please get a password manager. That was my saving grace. Fact that I didn't have to call every single company and explain what happened, at least not initially. Right. While I was just trying to figure out where everything was, I knew every account because there was a password manager.

Dr. Christiane Schroeter [00:11:22]:
Who or what helped you overcome the challenging time in your life.

Samantha Bradshaw [00:11:29]:
So in overcoming any situation, it would be both narcissistic and naive somehow at the same time of me to say that it's anything that I did. It was 100%. The people that were around me. And although, I mean, they weren't necessarily doing the task, getting things done, moving through it. It was the support of folks that made it easier to move through that. My aunt, for example, was constantly checking on me when there were, and she's one of my best friends, so it's not surprising to me at all. But when we were going through deadlines that were coming up, things that were particularly stressful. Family members, if two family members both wanted the same item from the house, disagreements about what should go where, that kind of Thing.

Samantha Bradshaw [00:12:21]:
So having someone just check on you and frankly even just be like, hey, do you want to come over? I made dinner and there was a bottle of wine sitting there. And we can just sit and BS about this whole thing all night if you want. Right? Like get it out. So my aunt was a huge part of that. My dad too. My husband, my therapist highly recommend therapy. It's a great thing for anybody who doesn't want to offload absolutely everything onto the people around them or doesn't necessarily want to have to think about how they're phrasing it, having that separate space is really helpful. And then to the best of my ability, which, I mean, I definitely faltered in this at times, making space for, to use a very popular term right now, self care.

Samantha Bradshaw [00:13:03]:
But what does that look like? That really could mean I'm going to dinner by myself at Oyster Happy Hour because I want oysters and I don't want to discuss this with anybody. Right. Because sometimes you're just tired of discussing things with people and so you go and figure out, okay, what do I need right now? I need something right now where I'm the only one making the decision and I get exactly what I want. That's Oyster Happy Hour. Go to Oyster Happy Hour. If that's taking 20 minutes to find a power nap, meditation on YouTube and laying down in the middle of the day on the floor on a fluffy rug, cool. Do that too. It doesn't have to be, I don't know, massages or trips to Europe.

Samantha Bradshaw [00:13:40]:
Although those things are nice, right? It really can be things that are just genuinely accessible like that. And oysters are indigenous to like where this, this area where all this was happening. So we, our Oyster happiers are like 50 cents an oyster. It's great. Highly recommend.

Dr. Christiane Schroeter [00:13:55]:
I love that you're kind of like taking self care from this kind of like Hooby doobie woo woo. We necessarily need to spend money to something that could be a happy hour, a special, or maybe even a free video that you watch on YouTube. Because I get this all the time where people will say like, oh yeah, self care. I just don't have the time. I just don't have the money. It's like you can go for a five minute walk. I appreciate that you brought up that you don't want that people ask you questions.

Samantha Bradshaw [00:14:24]:
Sometimes you don't.

Dr. Christiane Schroeter [00:14:26]:
I personally have this thing to where when I meet people and somebody in their life passed away, I have two rules, personal rules. First, I try not to say I'm sorry because frequently that Sounds somewhat empty. And secondly, I try not to say, I can't even imagine how you feel, because I think I'm creative enough to where I can imagine how they feel, right? So then what I'm trying to focus on is instead of saying something and saying, I can't imagine actually doing it, because that's just how I am. I'm more like a doer, right? And so I say, all right, so how about Tuesday we go out for dinner and then let's not talk about like, oh, my gosh, how do you feel? And like, no, I mean, you're not going to poke around in a wound. You're going to focus on something different because this person is going out to maybe distract themselves from what they're dealing with.

Samantha Bradshaw [00:15:22]:
So.

Dr. Christiane Schroeter [00:15:22]:
So you don't need to necessarily, like, in the middle of a restaurant, bring it all right back, because that's not the point, right? I picked up my kids from school and I remember it was like a week after my dad passed away and one of the teachers was like, so how are you feeling? And I thought, you are a teacher. Please don't ask me this question right in front of the students. Of course I'm not feeling great. What did you expect?

Samantha Bradshaw [00:15:44]:
We've been trained to say, I'm sorry, I can't imagine how you feel. My condolences. In our businesses, we've been trained that some things have to be done a certain way. And really, for me, such a huge part of this was, what do I need right now? What do I need to get to the next day, the next hour, the next minute, even sometimes, right? Depending on how intense that moment was. And if it is, I need somebody to not ask me questions and I need to get exactly what I want without spending a whole lot of money. You don't have to do things the way that it's expected. You don't have to respond the way that people expect. We say very often one of these cliches, right? You can't judge somebody in grief.

Samantha Bradshaw [00:16:23]:
To an extent, I agree with that. Although you're always going to be judged in some way or another, but who cares, right? Like, people are going to move on with their day anyway. Whatever. The reality is, if you can get through to the next stage in. In your life, through the grieving process, in your business, in school, whatever that is for you, right? The next semester, maybe, all that matters is that you're making it through that in a healthy, ish way, right? Sometimes it's ish and that's okay, right? We just have to be able to move through it in the best way that we have the capability to do so. And I think sometimes we, we forget that we're more creative than we give ourselves credit for. Right. We can come up with ideas that are free, cheap, don't require time, don't have to be the common response.

Samantha Bradshaw [00:17:08]:
Right. And sometimes those are the things we need the most.

Dr. Christiane Schroeter [00:17:12]:
Yeah. And of course it's just thinking about your own day too, you know, like, how do you go through your own day? Oh, we wash clothing, we take showers, we prepare meals. So this other person obviously has to do all that too. So if they have small children to say, all right, I'm going to take your kids, we go to the playground so you can take a shower.

Samantha Bradshaw [00:17:31]:
Right, Right.

Dr. Christiane Schroeter [00:17:32]:
So this is what we're going to do. I can take your kids so you can go out and have a nice bottle of wine with your friends above. So just say it. And obviously what you would appreciate, the other person most likely would appreciate too. And it's very basic, simple things. Childcare, food, going over and clean house, going shopping and dropping off the shopping goods at the door, saying, I'm going to bring you a meal and all these things. Meal, trains and all this, it's just so basic. But at the same time it doesn't require like, oh, so what do you think you need right now? It's more like, okay, I'm going to bring you dinner.

Dr. Christiane Schroeter [00:18:08]:
Would tomorrow better be better or next week? Simple decisions, just two decisions. Okay, tomorrow, next week you tell me and I'm going to be there.

Samantha Bradshaw [00:18:17]:
And I think, I think we started to see this become a bit more spoken about. When people become new parents, when they're going through grief, right? Any of these massive life changing events, it's no longer how can I help? You're still asking that person to make a decision. No, no, no, no, no. Here's how I can help. I am exceptional at making freezer meals, right? That's, I'm, I'm really good at that. I'm going to make you a freezer meal and I'm going to bring it over next week because I know I can't do it tomorrow, right? I'm, I'm looking at my life. I'm like, okay, in order to buy the ingredients, make the thing and then deliver it, I need a couple days personally. So I say I can deliver it next Wednesday.

Samantha Bradshaw [00:18:53]:
Would you like lasagna or a soup? Or would you like fried kid bay bowls that you can eat with one hand? Because for new parents they don't need a soup. They need one hand thing. Removing the burden of choosing from the person who maybe doesn't have the capacity to do that right now.

Dr. Christiane Schroeter [00:19:09]:
When my dad passed away, that was a neighborhood, and she put some cookies by the garage door. And she texted me and said, I just want to let you know, I just put some cookies by the garage door. And at first I was like, why? But then I was like, yeah, because she doesn't want to come to the door. Super awkward, you know, ring the doorbell and then look at me where I'm most likely not dressed or I don't want to see somebody. She just gives me space. I can open the garage door, I get the cookies, I go back into my house. It's like non invasive, you know, so in a certain way, we sometimes nearly like, overcomplicate things. Unlike what that person really needs right now.

Dr. Christiane Schroeter [00:19:50]:
And that person maybe doesn't know what they need right now.

Samantha Bradshaw [00:19:54]:
I think what's amazing about that story is you're like, you know, it's not. It's not invasive, right? Like you said, during a time when you really don't want that kind of interaction. But it is still 100% being part of community. You can be an introvert and still be part of community. You can still give community, you can still receive it. I think that's. That's a beautiful thing about those kinds of interactions.

Dr. Christiane Schroeter [00:20:14]:
Small actions speak for themselves. Those are the best things. It's really just about doing it. That's my petite practice. It's like just something small, but it's an action that you are really following through. Right. Making it meaningful instead of just using words. Well, where can we get a hold of you, Samantha?

Samantha Bradshaw [00:20:35]:
Sure. I would love to hear from anybody who wants to have a chat. We're most active on Instagram. You can find me at Inline Legal because we help you get your legal in line at my company. Also on our website at www.inlinelegal.com. and for anybody who wants the spreadsheet, it will come preloaded with my grandmother's chocolate chip recipe.

Dr. Christiane Schroeter [00:20:55]:
Oh, my gosh. This is the best.

Samantha Bradshaw [00:20:57]:
I like that.

Dr. Christiane Schroeter [00:20:58]:
Thank you for. Thank you for the listeners for being here today. I'm your host, Christiane Schroeder with the Happy Healthy Hustle podcast. And of course, as always, pop in the comments. What was your favorite moment of today's episode? Maybe let me know if you have any particular request for 2025. And I look forward to hearing from you. Thank you so much for being here today.