Stephanie McCullough (00:06):

This is Take Back Retirement, the show that’s redefining retirement for women. Retirement is an old-fashioned cultural concept. We want to reclaim the word so you can make it your own. I’m Stephanie McCullough, financial planner and founder of Sofia Financial, where our mission is to reduce women’s money stress and empower them to make wise holistic decisions so they can get back to living their best lives. Kevin Gaines is my longtime colleague with deep expertise in the technical stuff: investments, taxes, retirement plan rules. He’s a little bit nerdy and quantitative, I’m a little bit touchy-feely and qualitative. Together, through conversations and interviews, we aim to give you the information and motivation you need to move forward with confidence. We’re so glad you’re here.

(00:54):

Coming to you semi-live from the beautiful Westlakes Office Park in suburban Philadelphia, this is Stephanie McCullough and Kevin Gaines of Sofia Financial and American Financial Management Group. Say hello, Kevin.

Kevin Gaines (01:05):

Hello, Kevin.

Stephanie McCullough (01:06):

Today’s guest is really fascinating and I think you’re going to find the conversation especially pertinent to so many of our lives in this phase of life. Our guest is Mim Senft. I’ve come to know Mim through a great women’s group I belong to called Covey Club, which we’ll have to talk about another time. But, Mim has a really fascinating background and she’s come to create a business that we’re going to hear about in some detail, as so many entrepreneurs do, especially women entrepreneurs, Mim experienced a need – she went through this difficult time herself, she brought in her professional experience and she’s created something new and I think really helpful. Mim is co-founder and managing director of Motivity Care, a company that takes the complexity out of caregiving management. She has over 25 years of corporate experience in project management and benefits design, health and wellbeing and she’s worked on corporate wellness programs. She’s got certifications in group benefits, worksite wellness and property and casualty insurance. She’s an author, speaker, trainer and facilitator. She’s been very active in a bunch of different organizations and somehow in the confluence of all of this, she’s created this really cool business that she’s going to share with you today. Let’s dive in. Mim, welcome to Take Back Retirement.

Mim Senft (02:46):

Thank you. It’s a pleasure to be here.

Stephanie McCullough (02:48):

So share with us how you came to be doing the work that you do and the passion that you’ve obviously got for it.

Mim Senft (02:55):

Unlike a lot of people in the elder care space or silver economy as it’s sometimes called, I actually come from a finance benefits underwriting employee health and wellbeing engagement background. But I have also personally been the primary caregiving decision maker from multiple family members and kind of a resource for friends when they suddenly get stuck in what we affectionately call caregiver hell.

Stephanie McCullough (03:23):

Caregiver hell.

Kevin Gaines (03:24):

Affectionately?

Mim Senft (03:26):

Well, I think if you haven’t been through it before, you may not see it that way, but I think for anybody who’s listening to this who has been a caregiver and that person making all the decisions, trying to organize, just deal with the whole process of going through aging for yourself or someone that you love, you understand just how complex and overwhelming it becomes and how quickly you start to get frustrated and stressed.

Stephanie McCullough (03:50):

It is amazing when you think about how our society has evolved. We’re not living in family groups anymore. We don’t have default caregivers around us necessarily.

Mim Senft (03:59):

Yeah. Well, and I think that’s a really good point, and I love that you talk like family, right? Family, I always make the … and again depends on your age. We didn’t grow up in Brady Bunch families, most of us. Many of us have moved for jobs. We have family members scattered across. And I think even from a societal perspective, some of the institutions, religious organizations or some of those pieces of the puzzle that used to be a support system are just not there in the same way. And the level of what you need, everything from finance, legal, medical, vendor resources, all of these things, again, is much more complex than it was 50 years ago, 100 years ago.

Stephanie McCullough (04:42):

Yeah, I think that’s really true. So I know you’ve shared in the past some kind of information statistics on the impact that being a caregiver has on an individual. Can you share some of those sobering details?

Mim Senft (04:59):

Yeah, so I think it’s interesting. You got to think of time as money. Through a business lens, we tend to think about that. So according to AARP data on average, that caregiving decision maker, not the aide, but the caregiving decision maker is going to spend about 24 hours every week working on trying to manage all of this. And I’ve said this many times, but I don’t think any of us can suddenly come up with an extra 24 hours. And then this gets exacerbated if you’re caring for more than one person.

Stephanie McCullough (05:03):

Oh, wow.

Mim Senft (05:34):

Yeah. So there’s the time factor. Financially, we know that honestly, the larger majority of caregiving decision makers are women. And so we’ve seen some of this COVID data coming out over the past year or so. And the sad fact is that for women that have to choose between careers and managing all of this, because as I said, it becomes overwhelming, that there is a real financial hit to this.

(05:59):

You have to leave your career after you’ve worked so hard at 45, 50, 55 whatever that age is, and on average you’re going to leave anywhere from $400,000 to $800,000 on the table. So think about that in terms of what can be put back for retirement. It means Social Security benefits because you’re not paying into the system. It means potential raises that would’ve created a better financial platform for you as you age.

(06:31):

And then the other issue is so many people that end up using their retirement funds to care for their loved ones, and it’s a very emotional issue. What are you going to do? Mom or Dad or Aunt Suzie, or whoever it is, your best friend doesn’t have the funds. And the reality is that care can get very expensive.

Stephanie McCullough (06:52):

You mentioned being the care decision maker, which isn’t necessarily the person helping them get out of bed and getting someone dressed. Right?

Mim Senft (06:59):

Exactly. I think it’s really good to differentiate that. So you may be doing both, but when we talk about caregiving for someone, it is a whole, well, it’s like a 360 view of that person. So it’s everything from scheduling appointments, getting information to different providers, maybe fighting a Medicare claim. Maybe you have long-term care insurance and they’re not responding to you as an insurance carrier, or you’re not really sure if the legal documents are in the right place, or maybe what does a look back period even mean and how do I plan around that?

(07:37):

My financial advisor, so one really clear thing, if you have a power of attorney for financial decision making, a simple thing to remember is that you need to get that vetted by the financial advisor before the crisis because it can often take a long time on the other side for their legal team to approve it, which means you may not be able to pay bills.

Stephanie McCullough (07:59):

Some companies require their own forms.

Mim Senft (08:05):

Exactly, yeah. And again, you don’t know that, right? Going into this there’s just … and it’s nobody’s fault, it’s we’re not educated about this and we’ll maybe talk to our lawyer and our financial advisor and maybe we’re talking to our medical professionals and doing these things. But the problem is, is that now you’ve got all these different information streams and often they’re not coordinated, which again starts adding to this time factor, how do I manage this? How do I get appointments?

(08:30):

And again, that 24 hours, when do you make these phone calls? When do you get on this? It’s usually during regular business hours, which gets to the whole crux in our view of these working caregivers. It has a huge impact on their productivity and it really is an invisible crisis. We talk about caregiving in the workplace often in terms of caring for children, but we are not talking enough about our working employees that are caring for aging adults.

Kevin Gaines (08:59):

And it’s not enough just to be working from home because if you’re working from home, you’re working, you still have to find the time to do these things, right?

Mim Senft (09:11):

Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, even just trying to decide can that person age at home versus whether they want to go into some kind of retirement community, what type of retirement community, how do you even vet those? And you’ll find resources that will give you a list, but that still means you have to vet that list. This again is why we really looked at this problem and said, “Where are the real pain points in here for caregivers? How do we streamline the process?”

(09:33):

And just like financial advisors, not just look at the crisis and where they are right now, but have the expertise and the professionalism to say, “Things change as we age, and we want you to proactively think a little bit about that. And it should be a personal decision to you because what you need and what you want as you age may not be the same as someone else,” but that kind of pre-planning is really what alleviates a lot of the pain. And even financial pain.

Stephanie McCullough (10:13):

You mean, do the planning before the crisis hits? We’ve never said anything like that before, Kevin.

Kevin Gaines (10:28):

Doesn’t sound familiar. Doesn’t ring a bell, Plan when you can, not when you have to? Nah, I don’t think we’ve ever used that as a catchphrase.

Mim Senft (10:37):

Yeah. I think, again, COVID kind of underscored this for so many people. It’s interesting that we listen to single people, older professionals, they’re going along, they have friends, and suddenly they got very ill. And so again, this aging thing is not just about being 90. It’s saying, “If something happened to me today and I could not speak for myself, what is the support system around me? How do I guarantee that my wishes are carried out and that there is a professional, vetted team to execute on that?”

Kevin Gaines (11:10):

So where do you find that?

Mim Senft (11:13):

Good question.

Kevin Gaines (11:14):

I thought you might like one.

Mim Senft (11:17):

I do. I do. Well, and like I said, as I said at the beginning, this is also my personal experience and having watched all of this, this is why we created our company Motivity Care. And we are a tech-enabled kind of chief of staff. I mean, we like to kind of phrase it that way as a chief of staff. We want to make sure through a technology platform that every piece of information and documentation you may need is at your fingertips in a highly secure environment that you control. And we go way beyond.

(11:39):

This is the kind of thing that we do. So things like, is that person an introvert-extrovert? In a medical situation, is English their first language? What foods will they eat when they don’t feel well? These are things you don’t normally find in a medical record, but we want you to have those things in. But we dig a little bit deeper. Legal, just to give you some examples, is we want you to put in things like copies of marriage certificates, car titles, divorce decrees, not just where is my will and POAs. Those are all very important in healthcare directives. But there are other pieces of the puzzle that again, if you have these things at your fingertips can save you hours and hours of time.

(12:27):

We also go beyond that with contacts. So we want you to have three emergency contacts, first and second in case they can’t get that one. And who is that third person that might take care of the pet or have oversight of your house that needs to know right now? Then we want you to think about family dynamics. Not every family member, let’s be clear about this, needs or should be called depending on what the situation is. So having that list and being clear about who you need to contact, and then the third is just a practical list of housekeeper, dog walker, veterinarian, who takes care of your lawn? Do you have a preferred maintenance person that you’ve worked with for years? Everything in one place organized in a very clear way.

Stephanie McCullough (13:13):

So yeah, back us up and tell us a little bit about Motivity and the tech as well as the non-tech side.

Kevin Gaines (13:22):

And how you got here.

Stephanie McCullough (13:23):

Yeah.

Mim Senft (13:24):

We did a lot of looking around. I mean, in my past career I’ve done a lot of vetting of engagement platforms and actually done some consulting to it. I’m going to say I’m not a programmer, but really got boots on the ground experience around data security. And I’ve worked at major banks, so my level is pretty high in terms of what I require. And so when we went and started putting this together, that was one of the first things that was very important to us. How risk averse can we be for our clients?

(13:57):

We vetted and found road-tested technology that we could customize so that we could have … and for those of you who know anything about data security, we have Soc 2 Level 2 Cert on it. So that’s like what any international bank would have. We do weekly penetration testing, meaning they try and hack into the system, double authentication.

(14:19):

So the tech side we were very careful about and we wanted to make it super user-friendly. This is always the big barrier. Well, technology is this going to be difficult. So our demos literally take five minutes and everybody’s like, “What?” And we’re very proud of that fact. And we’re also in English and Spanish, but along with that, it’s not just about your information that you need to have organized and we help you keep that updated, which is also very key.

(14:47):

We also are your one point of contact to get you to vetted resources and think anything from food services to deciding whether or not we can age at home, to what community should we be looking at. Can you schedule doctor’s appointments? Can you help us get on a call with the lawyer? The financial advisor? Really help all of us come together to have a real plan that we all agree to.

(15:14):

We have vetted doctors that work with Cleveland Clinic in MD Anderson Cancer Center. So if you’re fighting or unsure of medical protocols or what’s next or even the difficult decision around hospice, we want you to feel comfortable and make sure that you have all the information from somebody who truly knows what they’re talking about, including even helping you vet hospice services, aid services. We have direct connections with owners. It makes it simpler if you can just call one person as opposed to trying to call 8 or 10. And so we position ourselves again as that chief of staff. Call us, we will listen, listen to your budget, your situation, come up with a project plan for you, and then we’ll help you execute on that.

Stephanie McCullough (15:59):

It feels like you’ve done a good job anticipating some of the objections that might come up. Do you have any experience or stories about family members who might be reluctant to have these conversations?

Mim Senft (16:13):

Look, I mean from an emotional perspective, we live in a youth-obsessed society. And so even just the thought of how do I talk about my own mortality, how do I talk about aging? And it can be very scary. So yes, you do get those things, but I think we like to position this as saying we live in a time, thankfully, where public health initiatives and all these pieces of the puzzle allow us to live much longer, much more independently than our grandparents in many cases.

(16:47):

And so it’s saying, yeah, it may be a tough conversation, but here is what you get. Here is the gift, the gift of control over your own life, control over those decisions, the ability to potentially stay independent much longer because you get into some of these crisis situations that you haven’t planned for and things can go south very quickly.

(17:11):

But if you’ve preplanned, look, we know people that have had open heart surgery, no joke at like 75 and come back from that and out hiking and traveling like a year later, right? Because they had everything in place, because they knew the right steps. I mean, they financially knew what they needed to do, the right service providers around them, they were prepared for this. As we age, things do happen. Just the reality. I mean, we’d all like to be living in out there and traveling, so we’re 95 or 100 or whatever it is, but you need to preplan when those unexpected things happen.

Kevin Gaines (17:49):

Mim, in your experience, yes, obviously doing this all ahead of time is fantastic, but not everybody is good like that or has the ability. Sometimes this stuff just comes out of nowhere or all of a sudden. How is it to actually have to figure all this stuff out on the fly within a 24-hour period when all of a sudden all this is coming down on you? Is there any good advice in those situations?

Mim Senft (18:18):

We do get those calls, so you’re right about that. And again, we have very, very busy lives and your career, your home, whatever personal pursuits you may be pursuing a second degree, whatever it is that you’re doing, it just seems, how am I going to fit this onto my plate? And so you’re right, it sometimes can come out of the blue.

(18:38):

I will even use my own personal experience. So my husband and I both have companies. He has a separate company and he was in a hit-and-run accident in New York City and I was 60 miles away, and he almost bled out in the street. I mean, it was very serious. And so I get the phone call from the social worker at the hospital and even somebody like me that has experience, and this is before we started Motivity Care, it is a very … how do I even say this?

(19:07):

It completely changes your world. This is the person you care about the most and is your partner in life. And suddenly, oh my gosh, do you remember what blood type, what medications they’re on? Do you take over-the-counter? All the little things that you’re probably not going to think of. And having a coach or a chief of staff to call in those situations can help you very quickly prioritize.

(19:34):

This again is why we’re so passionate about doing this, because we’ve been in that seat. My partner’s father went to visit family in another city and had a medical emergency. Nobody knew what to do. What meds is he on? Oh my gosh, do we have the medical card? What do we do? And so you think, again, the time lag that happens versus how that person’s being cared for in an emergency room. And in those immediate situations, it’s really helpful to have somebody that has the expertise to kind of say, “Okay, let’s quickly get you to here.”

(20:06):

We’re HIPAA-compliant. We have all of this for all our clients in place. You could be getting on a plane and suddenly get, “Mom had a fall.” So our goal is that you can call us and say, “Can you please share this information? We give you permission to do this with the ER while I’m trying to get there.” But realistically, to figure everything out in 24 hours, the immediate medical needs may be, but it usually goes way beyond that because especially in a medical emergency or an accident, my husband occurred, right? You don’t necessarily know everything. The doctors don’t know everything in that first 24 hours. What’s a recovery period going to be like? Are they going to be out of work? How long are they going to be out of work? Is this really life-altering? Are they potentially going to be in a wheelchair?

(20:51):

And then you start thinking about house stuff, and I mean you go down the giant rabbit hole. So our goal is to say, “Let’s get you focused. Let’s figure out the immediate pain points. Let’s make sure that the most key pieces are in place and then help you move forward at each stage of this.” And there are other organizations who do a lot of the crisis management piece of it, but our goal is really to be with you through the crisis and beyond and plan for the next thing. Because if you start just doing crisis to crisis, it will burn you out.

Kevin Gaines (21:26):

What I found interesting talking before we started recording, you were talking how it’s not just a personal issue. I mean obviously is, but businesses may want to be aware of this. And you threw out some big numbers in that discovery.

Mim Senft (21:44):

Well, I think to level set, we have about 70 million baby boomers in the United States, and that means that your employees, and we have caregivers that are taking care of grandparents. So it’s not just the people that are 50, 55. You also have younger adults that have parents that had them older. So you’re seeing caregivers at 30, 35, 40. And again, if it takes 24 hours each and every week, this has a huge impact on your productivity.

(22:16):

We saw huge turnover numbers after COVID or during COVID of people leaving. And this all adds up to an approximate cost of $50 billion to US employers right now. And that number is only going to grow. And so caregiving and talking about caregiving in terms of caring for aging adults, or it could be a special needs adult child, needs to be front and center as much as caring for children.

Stephanie McCullough (22:45):

Can you share, obviously anonymously, a couple stories about … you’ve shared your personal story, but maybe ways that having Motivity on their side has helped some of your clients?

Mim Senft (22:59):

Sure, I’d be happy to do that. Again, we can do one-off. Our goal again is to first make sure that your documentation information is organized. But we’ve had requests, and here’s a very specific one. This is the kind of out-of-the-box stuff that we do sometimes. Higher end client, mother needed cooked gourmet meals that met specific nutritional guidelines set out by her medical team. So we found a private chef that works with a nurse who’s a registered dietician. We did all the vetting, we did all the price points and all of those things.

(23:34):

We had another client, again, get set up on the platform but husband has MS and said, “Can you find us a health coach that specializes in working with MS patients and can do it virtually?” And of course, it’s not just finding them, it’s digging in and what is their expertise, what’s their training, what’s their track record? So that our client doesn’t have to worry about that.

(23:56):

But then we also do the big-picture piece. We had two daughters that got very concerned about their mother. She lived a good thousand miles from each one of them, so not living close, not a great family dynamic. And she had memory loss and it was really at a crisis point. So we listened, we sat down, we did meetings collectively with our lawyer, financial advisor, neighbor, got somebody to go in and take pictures of the house. It needed desperate … It was not in good shape. I don’t want to get too gross, but it was bad.

(24:33):

So we had to get a specialized deep cleaning service and then set up specialized services after that. She hadn’t seen a doctor in three years. So we worked out getting at least an RN to get a baseline, got all of this in place. We talked through all the documents, made sure all the legal documents were good, that if they needed bill pay, we worked this out to make sure that that was all in place should they need to pull the trigger on that. And everybody felt secure. And I will tell you this, we get one of the two financial advisors fired because the financial advisor was getting this woman to write $1,000 checks to his personal charity. So yes, this stuff happens.

(25:19):

We’ve put lawyers in place for a client who clearly has guardianship, has all the legal rights, but had an MIA brother who suddenly wanted mom’s money and was going to mom’s house in Florida and causing all kinds of problems, literally threatening, physically threatening her.

(25:38):

And again, our job as your chief of staff, she says, “I’m not sleeping. I’m stressed out. I know it’s my brother.” And so we kind of talk people off the ledge and then we go and get them. And so we vetted and got, “Here are three lawyers that can be that wall between you and your mom and give you some peace of mind. And it’s not anything against your brother, but you can’t continue to be like this. It’s impacting your physical health, your mental health. It’s impacting your business,” and she’s a business owner. And not to mention what it’s doing to her mother.

(26:09):

We’re really here for whatever you ask us to do, including doctor’s appointments. We have an executive that came out of the hospital and she’s like, “I just can’t handle doing even … can you just take this over for me?” Of course we can. That’s what we’re here to do. So it’s soup to nuts. You contact us, downsizing, moving services, lawyers, doctors, financial advisors, because we do ask that question, right? Do you have one, do you feel comfortable with them? What’s the relationship? Because they are part of your care team and they should be part of this collective that is keeping either your family member or yourself secure.

Stephanie McCullough (26:37):

Well, you mentioned a term earlier that I wanted to ask you about. What is financial care planning?

Mim Senft (26:53):

Good question. So most of us … well some of us, not all of us, but some of us have … we put back money. This is what we save for, for retirement. We’re saying this is what we’re going to need to live on. All of that is great, but that can change if you get an early Alzheimer’s diagnosis. You may not be working as many years. Your spouse may not want to work in the same way so you can spend time together. There are very personal and emotional issues that happen around this, but there’s the practical financial consideration.

(27:25):

What does it mean to bring care into the home? What are the costs around that? And then simple things, even for home renovations and bigger capital expenses, because we think about it, if it’s handicapped accessible, that’s usually the first thing that comes to mind. But the truth is you really need to understand if your home is set up for medical equipment, can your electrical system handle it? Do you have a generator? Are there any other major capital expenses that may happen over the next 10 to 15 years, depending on how long you’re projecting out?

(27:55):

But if you’re trying to manage all of this, then you have to replace a roof or have something major happen, do you have the financial means to do that? And so that’s why this becomes a bigger conversation to help people plan in these circumstances when the unexpected happens.

Stephanie McCullough (28:14):

Well, as our friend Cathy Sikorski, who’s an elder law attorney, always says, people plan for someone passing away, but it’s when you’re still alive that can be the more devastating.

Mim Senft (28:26):

Absolutely. And again, we think about this like, “Oh, we’re going to get to retirement. And then there’s old age and really old age,” but most of us really have the opportunity that we’ll retire. Well, hopefully, you get to do fun things, whether you love to camp or ski or go wine tasting or whatever it is that you love to do and you want to do or start at another company or volunteer, whatever it is. Having that independent, good life that you want for yourself at every stage of your life.

(28:55):

But the reality is that things will happen. And so even if you’re healthy, even if you’re doing really well, if you get into an accident somewhere while you’re on vacation, what happens? Or people that have two homes. This one I find kind of interesting too, ’cause we’ve had this conversation like, “Oh, well, I have everything in my safe and if I ever need and whatever,” and I’m thinking, A, who has access to it? B, if your POA lives a distance away and you’re in the hospital, they’re going to have to get in the house. They’re going to have to get it open, and then they’re going to have to get that paper and get it to whomever they need to get it to. Or if you’re in a completely different state or country and you don’t have that information with you or somebody that’s really designated for that, it can be very problematic, very quickly.

Stephanie McCullough (29:42):

My head is spinning with all the issues, and I just became an empty-nester a couple years ago, and my husband and I have four older parents between us. So many in my generation are in that sandwich situation where the kids aren’t necessarily independent and now the parents are needing more attention or care or it’s great aunt so-and-so or whomever. But it affects people at all ages, like you said.

Mim Senft (30:08):

It really does. I mean, it’s amazing when you go into a room and really start to talk to people, how many people, if they haven’t done it themselves, they almost always know at least someone who has managed and gone through this. So it really is about all of us, and I think really appreciate that you brought up sandwich, although a good friend of mine redefined that and called it the vise generation.

Stephanie McCullough (30:30):

Oh yeah.

Kevin Gaines (30:31):

Probably more apropos.

Mim Senft (30:32):

Yeah, it is a huge amount to balance trying to launch your kids and get them, and they could be in college or doing whatever they need to do. But I think to your point, here’s another thing to think about. All right, so if you are responsible for all four parents and you’re responsible for kids, what would happen if something happened to you? Who’s going to take all that over? Who’s going to know where that information is? Who’s going to know all those little specific things?

(30:59):

And it gets to why all the pieces of the puzzle from favorite music to things that they really love can make a difference. Yes, you need all the legal, financial, medical, but it is the more human piece of this that I think all of us that are in this industry that I think are reputable, we understand the care and the compassion piece of this that needs to be a part of it. It is a whole human being that we’re supporting. They are somebody that has contributed and has their own wants and needs, and we always want to honor that. But if you can’t speak for yourself or you don’t have it in a place where people can get it, what’s going to happen?

Stephanie McCullough (31:42):

Well, and the caregiver who loves this person wants to still maybe go on that wine-tasting trip or have a little break. So having the comfort level that someone else could step in and know these things, I think would be a huge relief as well.

Mim Senft (31:59):

Exactly. And I will tell you, my mother-in-law lives overseas. I have everything I need for her on my phone. So to your point, if I’m going to a meeting or I’m flying off to a conference or whatever it is, and I get that emergency phone call, I’ve got what I need. My husband has mine, I have his, I have my mother who lives two hours away, and I all have it accessible immediately.

(32:26):

And then the other thing is that, again, we recognize it can be very emotional. And so we are here. That may be a bad internet access or maybe you just can’t emotionally deal with it, we are here to back you up. So you can call us and say, “Look, Mom’s in the ER, I’m headed there. Can you please release this information to the ER doctors and just give me a heads-up when I get there?” So we are there to help as that extra arm. This is really important when you don’t live close to people.

Kevin Gaines (32:57):

I think it’s also important to talk about is we’re talking about the well-being of the person who needs the care, but the caregiver. I remember with my father-in-law, my mother-in-law was the primary caregiver. She was there 24/7, but we would relieve her more than just once a week. But once a week, Saturday night, she got to go out to play bingo, and that was a couple hours that she just needed to get away from a job she was perfectly happy to do. But I mean, it did take its toll.

Mim Senft (33:33):

You bring up a very, very good point. I am actually on … there is an AARP caregiver Facebook page that I am a member of. And you bring up an incredibly important point, self-care for the caregiver. This is a little bit of a gender equity issue because women in general will, you are the mom or you are the wife or you’re the sister. Of course, you’re supposed to do this. And so this, there’s a little bit of the superwoman syndrome that, “Why am I burning out? I can’t even talk about this and I’m not caring for myself.”

(34:09):

And caregiving realistically can go on for years and years and years. And so this built-in plan around saying, “Who can relieve me? Who can give me the recovery time that I need?” But think of any other job. Does anybody work 24/7, 7 days a week? They don’t. And to be constantly on edge, constantly listening, are they getting out of bed? Do I have to get the mess? As you’re trying to balance everything, it is the need to understand caring for the caregiver.

(34:42):

This was through Arts Philadelphia that shared this particular term with me is care partners, because there is the person that’s responsible for the decision-making and the person being cared for. But it is a reciprocal relationship in some ways. And so I like this idea that we are care partners together in helping that person who’s aging or going through whatever they’re going through. But it goes the other way, and the basics of the very simple things. What can you do for yourself and build into your daily schedule As a caregiver? I come out of the health and wellbeing space for years and years and years. It is so vital for caregivers.

(35:26):

If it is that five-minute ritual of having a cup of tea on the deck, if it is carving out time and making sure that somebody does it, we would never, ever expect somebody to work those kinds of hours in a workplace. And we would consider it almost like enforced slavery, wouldn’t we?

Stephanie McCullough (35:33):

Right. Inhumane.

Mim Senft (35:44):

And the reality is seeing somebody age, dealing with getting somebody the practical stuff, even watching it, even if you’re not doing it in and out of a bathroom, some of these things that, again, somebody that you loved that maybe had raised you, there are a whole host of issues that go into this. And so that’s why we talk about mental health, physical health, financial health for that caregiver. So I really appreciate that you brought that up because I think it’s really key.

Stephanie McCullough (36:12):

I appreciate, I almost see the service you’re providing. Yes, there’s the technology and the access to the documents, but it’s almost like a doula for the caregiver, someone who’s been through it before. You have the expertise, you’re a little bit less emotionally attached, so can help coach you through it, prioritize.

Mim Senft (36:33):

Exactly. And again, a doula’s interesting, but I view us more as a chief of staff because we bring the expertise to be able to speak to lawyers and doctors and review contracts and negotiate. I always say this, and I do mean this, on an outward-facing basis you need sometimes somebody that can be a bulldog for you depending on what the situation is because you may be too exhausted to fight and to get what you really deserve.

(36:59):

But at the same time, the professionalism and compassion and confidentiality for you, and that’s why you’ll get people that’ll do one piece. And I’m a huge fan of medical advocates and we work with a lot of those folks, but they do one slice of the puzzle. We love our financial advisors that we work with because they are amazing partners to the people that we care for, but they do that slice of the puzzle. Our goal, again, is to do this, but I am going to bring up one other thing because you said “doula.” So we now also have connections to, and this is not a newer term I think for most people is death doula.

Stephanie McCullough (37:42):

Yes, I’ve heard of these.

Mim Senft (37:43):

We’re so removed from the dying process. It is very scary to most people if you’ve not been through this. But as somebody who has done this personally, sat next to people give their last breath, been there, been through the whole process, the benefit of having somebody that can hold space for you. People think that’s hospice. That’s not hospice. Hospice is wonderful and you need good hospice partners, but they are not going to sit next to you day by day. They don’t understand this process or they’re not really, that’s what they’re designed to do.

(38:16):

So it is an amazing, I think, gift for some people that provides the emotional support of going through this process and can normalize this for you. There is such a thing as a good death, and I really do believe that because I’ve personally seen it and I wish that for everyone. And so yeah, it may be a hard conversation. It may bring up things for you, but I would encourage you to say, “If I want to live my best life, I should be able to make these decisions to say this is what I want for myself.”

Stephanie McCullough (38:50):

Give us a sense as to the beginning of this pre-planning. How could someone start if they’re thinking, “Oh my gosh, I’ve done none of this,” or, “I have had none of these conversations with my parents,” where could they start?

Mim Senft (39:00):

Yeah, good question. So we actually do have a free assessment form, which is just the practical piece. It takes less than 15 minutes. We can do it with you.

Stephanie McCullough (39:19):

I’ve done it. Yep.

Mim Senft (39:19):

Hey, thank you. That’s right. You have so you know. And it branches. So it really is … but it’s just to give you an idea like, “Oh wow, I hadn’t thought about this,” or, “Maybe I should do this.” That’s really the first thing you need to think about. And I think, I mean really the most fundamental question is to say, if something happened to my parent or loved one that I would be the caregiver for, what would I do? Do I know where any of this is?

(39:35):

And write down those questions for yourself. What would you ask your loved one, your parent, your spouse, whatever it is, whoever it is. And so it’s this combination of saying, “I don’t know anything about this whole segment and I have this piece in place, but I don’t,” or, “This is really outdated,” and that’s really a good place to start. What do I have? What do I not have? What would I like to know?

Stephanie McCullough (39:57):

I mean, I don’t even know how to call my husband’s colleagues from work because it’s all on his cell phone and I don’t even know his cell phone code. So we used to have little books, little address books we could look at.

Mim Senft (40:11):

Exactly. So we actually do have a segment on the platform. And again, whatever you want to put in there. So you could put in a Hulu password. Really, you could put in that code, right? Because I don’t remember my husband’s code right to the phone or whatever it is. But this is why I talked about those three segments of contacts because we want to make it real clear and real easy for you.

(40:35):

But beyond that, there are things. You might have a club membership that somebody else doesn’t know about that needs to be addressed or canceled or waived for a particular period of time. Specifically with financial advisors, our advice is: do not put any real dollar amounts in here. That’s not what this is for. But you want to put in who the financial advisor is, how do you contact them? You might want to list account numbers to make it super simple for you, just so you double-check this. Look, we’re all human, and you get on a call, and as long as you know that everything is in there, you can get on with that financial advisor very quickly and say, “Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Now let’s have a plan around this.”

(41:14):

It’s really meant to be customized for you and your situation. There are people that have assets overseas and that opens up a whole ‘nother can of worms. So we also address that and luckily we have people that can speak Spanish, French, Hebrew, Portuguese. I just got somebody on board that can speak Italian. And we even have someone that works with the deaf community.

Stephanie McCullough (41:41):

Oh, great.

Mim Senft (41:42):

It’s really important to us that we can serve as many people as possible, and we all know that people feel most comfortable in their native language. So we do our best to honor that as well.

(41:53):

I will say this, I think it’s simply care enough to prepare, care enough for yourself, care enough for the people around you, care enough for your employees so that they don’t have to go through Caregiver Hell and that they have the vetted professional resources around them when the time comes. I always say this, that it is truly a gift to yourself and those around you. And this problem is not going to go away.

(42:22):

Hopefully we all get to live to a ripe old age and stay as independent and feisty as possible. That comes with this preparing and really being able to map that out for yourself. I just greatly appreciate the opportunity to share with all of you and the audience and be invited to this really amazing podcast.

Stephanie McCullough (42:33):

Absolutely. So how can people follow you, find out more, learn about these topics?

Mim Senft (42:48):

So you can reach out to us at www.MotivityCare.com and you can reach us through the info line or shoot us an email. If you want to email me directly, I will absolutely respond to you. Mim, M-I-M, @MotivityCare.com. We are on LinkedIn, you can certainly see what’s going on there. We do webinars. We do this with many partners and we encourage you to learn so you don’t feel in the dark about a lot of these issues, and it’ll help you make your decisions.

Stephanie McCullough (43:04):

Excellent. Thanks so much for your time today.

Kevin Gaines (43:06):

Thank you.

Mim Senft (43:07):

My pleasure. Really honored to be here.

Stephanie McCullough (43:34):

Well, I enjoyed that conversation with Mim because I think there’s so many things that she’s seeing every day that maybe the rest of us, if we haven’t yet walked in those shoes, aren’t quite aware of. First of all, I love her term, the silver economy. Hitting the needs of this giant boom in the population that’s going through this certain age group right now. But what really hit me was that figure of women leaving between $400,000 and $800,000 of earnings on the table, right? Leaving it behind because they’ve got to take time away from their careers to be a caregiver. That’s life-changing money right there.

Kevin Gaines (44:11):

And I definitely like silver better than gray. I mean, a lot of times we hear they’re saying, “Oh, the gray economy,” or, “The graying of America.” Silver is just so much more sparkly, I guess. I don’t know.

Stephanie McCullough (44:22):

Yes. Or blingy.

Kevin Gaines (44:25):

But along those lines, as far as leaving money on the table, what struck me was how it impacts businesses. $50 billion in lost productivity, the employees, having to retrain replacements all because people are getting taken away from literally their day job to care for loved ones. Again, you don’t necessarily have to institute some sort of grandiose employee benefit, but think these things through, especially key employees, what happens if they get distracted at least? What can you do to make it easier on them, both because you just want to help them out, but also to help out your company so they can stay engaged longer.

Stephanie McCullough (45:18):

I liked the focus also on doing this stuff ahead of time, which as we know we talk about all the time, but her phrase was: care enough to prepare. So at some point, chances are all of us are going to need care in one way or another. So if we can give the gift of doing that pre-planning, having everything together so that whoever’s going to step into help has what they need, that’s going to reduce stress for everybody.

Kevin Gaines (45:47):

To that point, it’s not just the big things. Where were the legal documents, how is everything going to be paid for? But what really struck me was the little things. What was the one question she said they asked? What food do you like to eat when you’re stressed?

Stephanie McCullough (45:59):

Yeah.

Kevin Gaines (46:00):

Let’s think about it. Fine. You’ve got a loved one who is keeping care of you and they know everything about you and they’re doing a good job. Somebody else has to step in. It’s going to be an adjustment period. Who wants the anxiety of dealing with, “Oh, that’s not the right food,” or, “No, I don’t get up at this time,” or, “Go to bed at this time,” or, “The dog needs to be walked this way.” The little things. And again, at the grand scheme of things, it’s probably not going to make or break anything, but it’s going to … a lot of anxiety and stress, the situation that probably doesn’t need additional anxiety and stress.

Stephanie McCullough (46:44):

Yeah, I think so. And the idea of having a professional on your side through this, right? Someone or a group of people who’ve done this before, heck, they’ve got certifications in it. They know the questions to ask that if you’re going through it for the first time, you don’t necessarily know and you don’t know how to even research this stuff. And the point that she made that they have discovered cases of elder abuse. Even just having that extra set of eyes on things, a giant help to me.

Kevin Gaines (47:16):

Well, I mean I’ll tell you a personal experience. When my dad passed, that day when we brought him home was his first day of hospice. I remember I’m staying home with dad, keeping care of him while my mom and sister were running around trying to get the prescriptions and get all this stuff arranged. We had no idea what we were doing. Hospice, god bless them. They helped us the best they could, but it was still an extremely stressful situation and we were kind of flying blind. So having somebody who’s been there, I don’t think that value can be underestimated.

Stephanie McCullough (47:59):

Yeah, and just to focus on being able to control your decisions and staying independent as long as possible seems completely in keeping with the mission of our work, Kevin.

Kevin Gaines (48:11):

Absolutely. Yeah, definitely a microcosm of what we try to do in bigger and sometimes happier situations.

Stephanie McCullough (48:20):

Hopefully, but covering all possibilities.

Kevin Gaines (48:23):

Absolutely.

Stephanie McCullough (48:24):

It’s obviously fertile ground for a conversation. I’m sure we will touch on the topics like this in the future. If there’s specific aspects you’d like to hear about, please let us know. Thanks so much for being with us. We’ll talk to you next time. It’s goodbye from me.

Kevin Gaines (48:36):

And it’s goodbye from her.

Stephanie McCullough (48:41):

Be sure to subscribe to the show and please share it with your friends, show notes and more information available at TakeBackRetirement.com. Huge thanks for the original music by the one and only Raymond Loewy through New Math in New York. See you next time.

Disclaimer (48:55):

Investment advice offered through Private Advisor Group, LLC, a registered investment advisor. Private Advisor Group, American Financial Management Group, and Sofia Financial are separate entities. The opinions voiced in this material, are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice, or recommendations for any individual security. To determine which investments may be appropriate for you, consult your financial advisor, prior to investing. This information is not intended to be substitute for individualized tax advice. Please consult your tax advisor regarding your specific situation.