Five with Fry
Five with Fry is your go-to podcast for understanding conflict—where it comes from, why it shows up, and how to handle it with clarity and intention. On each episode, Dr. Jen Fry breaks down the moments we avoid, the reactions we default to, and the skills it takes to move through conflict without blowing things up or shutting down.
Five with Fry
44: The Difference Between Hard and Complicated
If you’ve been around Five with Fry for a while, you know we talk a lot about the difference between what’s hard and what’s complicated—and if you haven’t, go back and catch up, because those episodes are gold.
In this one, Dr. Jen Fry gets personal. She shares what she learned after her mom, Carol Fry, passed away in June 2020, using that experience to break down how grief and logistics collide. Going through a parent’s things? That’s hard. Navigating probate, bills, and paperwork? That’s complicated. And when you don’t have your affairs in order, the complicated makes the hard even harder.
Jen walks through simple, real-world steps—like setting up a legacy contact, naming an emergency contact, and getting your paperwork together—so your people aren’t left drowning in details when they should be remembering you.
This episode is both heart and homework: a reminder that planning ahead isn’t morbid, it’s love in action.
Friends, welcome to Five with Fry, where five is the magic number, whether it's five minutes, five questions or anything that fits in five. I dive into the big topics that matter, sometimes alone and other times with a friend. From navigating sports conflict to family dynamics, travel, tech, hard-hitting issues and even politics Nothing and I mean nothing's off the table. This is where curiosity meets conversation, and we always sit at an intersection. I'm your host, dr Jen Fry of Jen Fry Talks. Let's get into it, friends. Welcome to this new episode.
Dr. Jen Fry:So you have heard past episodes where I've talked about hard and different ways, and, if you haven't, get your butt back and listen to the previous episodes, because maybe I'm partial to it, but they're amazing. So in this episode we're going to talk about the difference between complicated and hard, because sometimes we don't know that there's a difference, a difference between it being just complicated or just hard, and so the analogy that we're going to work with during this five minutes is we're going to use the analogy of a parent passing away, and some of you might be dealing with elderly parents right now. Some of you maybe have had a parent recently passed away, and my heart goes with you, and so my mom, carol Fry passed away in June of 2020. And if you've had a parent pass away, you know you have to deal with a lot of stuff, and I think this is the perfect analogy between hard and complicated. So when your parent passes away, going through all of their things is hard. It's emotionally hard. Sometimes it can be physically hard, but that's just hard. You're going through and seeing albums. You're going and you smell them. You are seeing their favorite foods. You're seeing all that stuff. That's a hard thing to navigate. I know when I was going through my mom's stuff it's just very emotional because in some ways, you're closing this last door with a parent and whoo that shit. That's hard.
Dr. Jen Fry:What's complicated is going through their papers, their bills, their estate. It's complicated because now you could potentially have probate court in there. It might be determining who gets what. It might be realizing there are new bills popping up. It might be who can sign on this, who can pay this, who gets this money.
Dr. Jen Fry:Those are all things that are very complicated, especially when people do not have their estates ready and prepared, and so a part of this podcast is also really harping on you to get your estate prepared, to make sure you have someone who knows what you want if you are unable to speak, because that's going to be really, really critical and I know sometimes people are like I'm too young, I don't want to think about it. No, you need to think about it, you need to talk about it. You need to make people your emergency contacts on your phones, if you can. You need to make people your legacy contact on your phones, if you can. You need to make people your legacy contact on your phone or whatever social media.
Dr. Jen Fry:You have to think about those things, because what makes a hard moment complicated is if you don't have any of those things together. So now, in the middle of grieving, I have to deal with all these complications, and that makes it now a complicated thing is now hard, and so I just kind of want us to think about those two separate things, because sometimes a hard thing is just hard and sometimes a complicated thing is just complicated, complicated. You got to get strategy down Hard. You got to be able to just go through that. Can those two intersect? Absolutely, but we have to remember some things are hard and not complicated, some things are complicated and not hard. But at the end I need you to get your estate ready. I need you to have paperwork of what your wishes are and if you look in the show notes, we will have some information for you, for your family members. Take care, friends.
Dr. Jen Fry:Well, friends, that's it for this episode of Five with Fry your dose of five insights, ideas and inspiration. If you love what you heard, don't forget to head over to where podcasts are played, to subscribe, share and leave a review. Got a topic you want us to tackle? Drop us a message. We'd love to hear from you. You can come follow me on IG, twitter, the TikTok at Jen Fry Talks, or join me on LinkedIn. Look for me at Dr Jen Fry. Until next time, stay curious, stay bold and keep the conversation going. See you on the next Five with Fry.