23 - From Tragedy to Entrepreneurship with Chanel Reynolds
Tue Jan 27 2026
Chanel Reynolds founded Get Your Shit Together, a company she launched in 2013 to help people navigate the unglamorous but essential realities of life planning: wills, advance care directives, insurance, money, and all the details we tend to avoid until life forces the issue.
Chanel’s work has reached more than a million people through her widely downloaded Get Started Checklist and free planning templates, and her book has helped redefine how we talk about preparation, loss, and care.
In this episode, Chanel shares the deeply personal moment that led her to build a company around one of life’s hardest subjects — losing her husband unexpectedly and discovering, in real time, how unprepared even the most capable people can be when crisis hits.
She also reflects on what it means to build a mission-driven company from personal loss, how Get Your Shit Together evolved through multiple iterations, and why planning — taken five minutes at a time — can be one of the most quietly radical acts of self-advocacy we can make.
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Chanel Reynolds founded Get Your Shit Together, a company she launched in 2013 to help people navigate the unglamorous but essential realities of life planning: wills, advance care directives, insurance, money, and all the details we tend to avoid until life forces the issue. Chanel’s work has reached more than a million people through her widely downloaded Get Started Checklist and free planning templates, and her book has helped redefine how we talk about preparation, loss, and care. In this episode, Chanel shares the deeply personal moment that led her to build a company around one of life’s hardest subjects — losing her husband unexpectedly and discovering, in real time, how unprepared even the most capable people can be when crisis hits. She also reflects on what it means to build a mission-driven company from personal loss, how Get Your Shit Together evolved through multiple iterations, and why planning — taken five minutes at a time — can be one of the most quietly radical acts of self-advocacy we can make.