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Your Company Health
Your Company Health
Champion Caregiving, Growing A Business With Elizabeth Miller
In a recent interview, Elizabeth Miller, the founder of Happy Healthy Caregiver, shared her journey and insights into the world of family caregiving. With an estimated 53 million family caregivers in the United States, 60% of whom are juggling work responsibilities, the need for support and resources has never been greater.
Elizabeth's path to becoming an advocate for family caregivers began in 2014 when she found herself caring for her parents and in-laws while maintaining a demanding corporate career. This experience opened her eyes to the challenges faced by millions of Americans in similar situations..
Happy Healthy Caregiver offers a range of services designed to support family caregivers:
- A weekly newsletter packed with tips and insights
- The Happy Healthy Caregiver podcast, boasting over 200 episodes
- Complimentary coaching sessions for personalized guidance
In addition to her work with Happy Healthy Caregiver, Elizabeth is actively involved with nonprofit organizations such as Daughterhood and Adult Children of Aging Parents. She leads support groups and coordinates speakers, leveraging her personal experience to provide valuable insights to other family caregivers.
Looking ahead, Elizabeth envisions a future where healthcare providers offer immediate support to family caregivers upon diagnosis. She also sees a growing role for corporations and faith communities in supporting caregivers through employee resource groups and other initiatives.
Happy Healthy Caregiver offers personalized resources to meet the unique needs of various types of family caregivers. Whether you're new to caregiving, seeking community support, or feeling burned out, the website provides tailored paths and resources to help.
For those new to caregiving, Elizabeth recommends starting with the main resource page on happyhealthycaregiver.com and joining the email list for regular updates and support. She also offers complimentary coaching sessions to help family caregivers navigate their roles and find the right resources.
To access these valuable resources and connect with Elizabeth Miller, visit happyhealthycaregiver.com. Explore the website, join the email list, and tune in to the podcast for ongoing support and information tailored to the needs of family caregivers.
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Speaker 1 0:00
Welcome to another episode of The your company health podcast. My name is Andre Wright, and today I have a very special guest. Elizabeth Miller, found of happy health caregiver. Hey, Elizabeth, how are you?
Unknown Speaker 0:14
I'm doing well. Andre thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 0:18
It's a pleasure for you to be here. I know we've been talking for a while, but finally you're here and just excited to have this conversation. So let's to get things started. Talk to us about your story and how you got into healthcare.
Speaker 2 0:30
Yeah, so I'd say I'm kind of more in the in the I call it like the caregiving space, versus like the healthcare system, certainly not a nurse or a professional in that space. But the care economy is so huge, and there are 53 million family caregivers in the US, and a lot of them are working. So 60% of these are working. And these are just the best stats from what we know from the latest data that is actually pre pandemic. But I found myself, my personal story is that back in 2014 while I was working in my my job, caregiving happened in my life, I could kind of see it coming like a mudslide. Frankly, my parents health had continued to decline and and things started to get really bad in 2014 where my husband was caring for his mom, who had lung cancer, and then my parents had this whole cocktail of different things going on with them. Sadly, we both lost a parent that year, and then I became the primary caregiver for my mom and what was called being squeezed in the sandwich generation, so caring for my kids who were in middle school at the time, caring for my mom, who lived nearby in assisted living, but, you know, she was grieving my dad and was really dependent on me for a lot of things, trying to process that grief as well with for my dad, and then, oh, by the way, I've got this corporate, demanding job that, you know, I'm supposed to be in the peak of my career, earning years, and my husband was simultaneously squeezed, and so we just felt like we were not even recognizing who we were in the mirror anymore. Our health and happiness had completely, you know, suffered. We were just, you know, constantly, kind of like passing each other, like you got this, you got this, and tired, overwhelmed, stressed, and just felt like we were the only people you know, going through this at that time. And I, you know, kind of went back to my roots of of I studied Broadcast Journalism at Penn State University, but I never really used it in my corporate career. I fell into it. And then corporate strategy was my last corporate job, managing business transformation projects and but I learned Broadcast Journalism at Penn State, and so I went back to my roots of kind of writing to help me process what was going on. And that was kind of the initial things 10 years ago for happy, healthy caregiver, and then later layered on the podcast. So using those skills I learned in college, spotlighting different caregiver stories and extracting the resources and tips that help them and learning and about that in the process coaching caregivers, and then really where I where I found a real love, is through professional speaking, speaking with companies and organizations to help support the people who looked like me back in the beginning of like the feeling overwhelmed and lost, and So essentially creating what I wish existed for me,
Speaker 1 3:22
awesome, awesome. And that that's, I mean, it's always good. You know, when you you are you working towards your passion, and you're doing something that you're passionate about and and you have that story that propelled you in in this era. So I wanted to talk to us about some of your services for happy health caregiver.
Speaker 2 3:42
Yeah, so happy healthy caregiver. It, you know, there, it's kind of got two different parts. So what I offer family caregivers, so those caring for their loved one is, you know, they can follow on social media and get some tips and resources that way. I've got a weekly newsletter they can tap into where every week I share something happy healthy and caregiver related, and then I also do initial complimentary coaching session if they want to tap into that. And of course, there's the happy healthy caregiver podcast, which has about 200 episodes. So all of that is mostly, you know, complimentary for family caregivers. I mean, certainly if they want to purchase my journal or other things they can take into that. But how I make a living then is through working with companies, working with organizations. And then have found myself also to be really in this accidental influencer space, in the care space, where you know if companies and products are developing solutions to help, to help this segment of the population, either older adults or different types of caregivers, and looking for a way to market their product or service and so, through the podcast ads, through newsletter ads and so forth, I can help kind of spotlight some of those things that I could have saw how they would have helped me. In my life,
Speaker 1 5:00
awesome. Talk to us about us, some of your I know you, you've mentioned you've done the podcast, right? Yes, your main outreach. Talk to us of some of the ways that the community outreach that you do apart from the podcast, yeah.
Speaker 2 5:15
So I, you know, apart from the podcast, I'm involved with a couple nonprofits as well. So I I'm in the Atlanta area, but I support family caregivers all over. One of the things that we offer are through a nonprofit called daughterhood. Daughterhood.org is month. They have a bunch of different circles of support, either on a certain topic or an ad hoc support group where caregivers can come in. It's geared toward Daughters of aging parents, but certainly others can can join and benefit from this as well. So I lead one of those a month as as a volunteer opportunity. And then here in the Atlanta area, we have programs through a chapter another nonprofit called adult children of aging parents, or a cap community.org and in our chapter, my role is to find speakers and experts that can talk about the curriculum topics that we have available. So for example, like this month, we're talking about, you know, when you're older adult, those driving transitions when they can maybe, you know, driving has gotten to be a lot for them, but they still want are, you know, craving this independence. How do we deal with that as a as a care community, to keep everybody safe? But it could be dementia topics or other other topics related to that. So I love kind of doing these two things to kind of give back. In addition to what I'm what I'm doing, I'm still a support caregiver. So I my folks are deceased. My brother was born with an intellectual disability and is on the autism spectrum, so he requires a different kind of level of support. So with my siblings, we're trying to share the care and kind of figure out how to navigate the complicated, fragmented healthcare system that we have and really provide the best support for him. So I'm, you know, I'm still living it, frankly, like while I'm helping others, I'm also it's helping me at the same time, because I feel like the best information comes from other family caregivers who are living it. And so I lead a support group for those who are caring for adults with special needs, and I am facilitating it, but at the same time, I'm learning about things that can help me for my brother. So it's a win, win. Yeah, it is.
Speaker 1 7:31
It is, and that is. That tells a lot about you, for you to be doing all this. I know it could be very difficult, as what you mentioned all the you know, the situation with your family and surrounding but what motivates you? What motivates Elizabeth to get up every morning and say, you know, yeah, do this.
Speaker 2 7:54
I mean, you know. So my niche, too, in this space Andre is like, I really want to help caregivers figure out how to make their lives sustainable. So how do they juggle the work, the life, the caregiving altogether, and how do they do that without burning out and having their own health and happiness suffer? So I have to practice what I preach, since I'm essentially a self care cheerleader or a bully, depending on how you look at it, for caregivers, so I have to pay my own health and happiness as well. And so I, you know, carve out time for myself in the morning as an entrepreneur to really kind of, you know, what do I need today? Sometimes I need to sleep. Sometimes I need to strength train. Sometimes I need to eat a lot of protein. Sometimes I need to get out in the sunshine. So whatever it is, but that's I think ultimately, what motivates me, though, is I just want our world to be different. I, you know, caregivers are delightful people. I have not met one of them that I don't like, and I just feel like they're they're doing so much good, but you know, at what price? And so how do we minimize the cost of that caregivers are doing to kind of fill the gap in our healthcare system like we're outnumbered, right? And it's only going to get worse, frankly, that, you know, we've got more baby boomers. I think last stat I heard from AARP was 12,000 turning 65 or older every single day. So that doesn't mean that their disease is synonymous with aging, but that population is way larger, and there's not enough people to take care of the people who need the care. And so that gap in our health care system is being filled by people like me, people like you, who who are just, you know, everyday people that are also trying to pay, raise their pay their bills and raise their families and take care of their homes. And that's what motivates me, is like, how do, how do we make this easier for this population? Yeah,
Speaker 1 9:48
yeah. I mean, I mean, that's, that's, that's great. You just want to, you know, we all want this world to be better. And, yeah, we can, we can we can help more. I know you've, you're pretty savvy online. Your influencer. I've seen you all over LinkedIn, your podcast is doing pretty, pretty well. And as you know, I'm in the digital marketing fields, but talk to us about some of the digital marketing strategy I've been using.
Speaker 2 10:13
Yeah, you know, I think, you know, I kind of put things through the lens a little bit of I am the avatar. My sister is the Avatar who cared for my parents, like the people that I know. When it comes to marketing, I think specifically to family caregivers. What I like to do and what I like to see is real people that are like me. So what kind of turns me off is seeing like stock photos, where caregivers are all, you know, made up, and everything is so happy and joyful. It's like, No, it's not always, you know, we're, we're messy buns. Sometimes I, you know, I'm all dressed like I'm exhausted and hadn't slept, or stains on the shirt so and then I think that was, what was important to me about the podcast, is, is spotlighting real people. There are a lot of experts in that healthcare space, but I wanted to talk to the people who are living it and living in the trenches. And so I think that, you know, the caregiver community is a really loyal community. And so if they find something that is going to work for them and help them, then they are going to help elevate that and amplify that out there. And so I think you know, through story sharing through real, authentic referrals of people using it. And I think, you know, the more we can do also to to benefit family caregivers without having them have to pay for the things directly. Because I think that's the other thing that that I want people to kind of realize who are marketing to this population is that they are already paying a lot out of pocket for products and services and maybe lost wages, you know, from taking time off of work and paying for home care and assisted living and all of those things. So care is expensive. And I think what people don't realize is that Medicare does not pay for long term care. So you know, most of it is either Medicaid. You've got to be really financially needy to kind of qualify for those things, or you're wealthy and you can private pay for everything. But there's a whole world of people in that middle population, and so speaking to that, and really understanding what those pain points are for them, I think, is the is the relevancy around that, that they need, the resources that they, you know, are overwhelmed, that they're they're financially strapped in many, in many cases. And so I think really, really knowing your audience is key.
Speaker 1 12:36
And that's, that's, that's well said, and you touched on something that's very important, authenticity? Yes, very important, not only for the healthcare, the caregiving space, but for any aspect of business. You know, we've often times seen, you know, people all over LinkedIn, all over social media, oh, they're showing this. They're showing that, and it's just not authentic. And and what you know, what we realize, and statistics show this, that, you know, people will engage more with authentic people.
Speaker 2 13:04
Yes. And one more thing to add to that Andre is like, you know, I get, I meet a lot of startups in this space, right? Like, maybe, and I'm not afraid of it because I'm got an IT background. So I know, you know, the scrappy things sometimes you have to do to kind of get your thing out into the world, but at the same time, like, what is not going to work in the marketing space is to keep saying what your product and services over and over again. Like, hey, this is what we're selling. This is what we're offering. This is like, what, what is the value? What is the, you know, providing the value of of that? Yes, you can, and I'm, I try to be conscious of that I sell things, right? I sell speaking, I sell books and so forth. But what I hope people get from when they follow my accounts is that they're getting value and they're getting tips, and they're getting real, practical, pragmatic things that they could potentially apply in their life or tell their friend about. And then, you know, every so often they're like, oh, yeah, I forgot. She sells books, or she's a speaker, and she's really helped me. We should probably use her, you know, yeah,
Speaker 1 14:08
and you're completely right. It's all about solution. It's all about, you know, solving a pain, right?
Speaker 2 14:14
Because, like, the more conversations you have with people like, oh, they like to do X, Y, Z, they have kids, they are pet people. They, you know, love to travel. And then you can tailor what you're offering to meet in those different needs and those pain points. And that's giving you more more information that's going to better tailor your your your pitch, your subtle pitch, or whatever you're it's really a relationship, though.
Speaker 1 14:40
It is not just, you know, sending all things and don't authentically, you know, deal with people and ensure that they realize that you're, you're human, you know, yes, so that's so true. That's what it's it's all about. So I'm really glad that you mentioned authenticity, because I mean, over social media, it's. You know, you find a lot of fake people, a lot of fake things. Oh, come and deal with me. You can make, you know, a million dollars tomorrow, you know, some fake stuff. Um,
Speaker 2 15:08
lot of fake stuff. And I can, I can feel 100% good about like, every follower, every whatever, like, has chosen, like, you know, not paid for, not, you know, no shortcuts. Like it's been a grind, right? Like, when you're in a business for yourself, like people only see kind of the little top of of the of the glacier, but there's a lot of a lot of hard work and grit that kind of goes beneath the surface to kind of get to those points, right? And
Speaker 1 15:35
when you build an authentic audience, you you know they will stay. You know they will stay. Yeah, you naturally build that relationship, and they're going to be around to see you know, you know what's your you're all about. And then eventually, you know, you know, purchase your product. Talk to us about some of the like, one or two good business ideas you receive through your journey in the caregiving space.
Speaker 3 16:00
Okay, can be related to anything, not just marketing and not just marketing. Yeah. I mean, I think your your success, you know, yeah.
Speaker 2 16:07
I think one of the biggest things, and I can really credit my IT career for this, is, like, you know, as an IT professional building products and solutions and things we were constantly testing and learning and testing and learning. And so for me, I think one of the things that has helped me over these past 10 years is that, you know, I threw a lot of spaghetti at the wall to see what's what has stuck. And not being afraid. Don't let you know, perfect be the enemy of the good. You know, it's you can iterate on things and you can expand on things. And so I think just kind of getting it out there and then refining it over time and pivoting when it's not working. You know, there was a time in my business where, you know, I was much more geared towards B to C versus B to B, as far as, how do I made a living? And I could see that that was not going to work for me, and that wasn't going to it didn't also didn't feel great for me, like I wanted, I wanted someone to pay for the support on the caregivers behalf. So that was a big pivot. It was, you know, it really had me restructuring things. And so I think sometimes it's we've got these ideas of great solutions and things that we think people should want, but I think a lot of it needs to be validated first of all, like, don't go spending a bunch of money and go down this path if you haven't even really validated that this is even a pain point for people, you know, it's like, good intentions, I know, you know, when I first started a website and I had an e book out there, I was like, oh, people need this. They're gonna this is gonna be great. They're gonna want this. But, you know, I just didn't have the social following then, I didn't have all of the things that kind of go into it. And so I think, you know, we can kind of minimize how important some of that is. Like, you can have the best product and service in the world, but if you don't have kind of the the backing and the marketing and the reach behind it, it's hard. You're either going to have to grit and grind to get there, or you're going to have to pay money to kind of, you know, advertise, and I didn't have the money to spend on that. So it's, I think, I think, though, the important thing there is to validate, be ready to pivot and and iterate, test and learn, test and learn.
Speaker 1 18:14
Yeah, yeah. I mean, and those are great points in terms of, you know, putting the right structure in your business so that you can scale. Because, as you mentioned, I mean, you can do the wrong things first, you know,
Unknown Speaker 18:27
there's plenty wrong, yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1 18:30
exactly that goes for, you know, any business, you know, you have to have the right structure in place and also the right audience. You know. You know, as you know, I'm in the digital marketing space. And I've, you know, we have assessed website and we've done a lot of audits, and, you know, realize that, you know, doctors, they're just targeting the wrong things. You know, they're not targeting the service that are more profitable, the audience, the right audience. You know, there's
Speaker 2 18:54
language, it matters Exactly, exactly the content.
Speaker 1 18:57
You know, they're, they're, they're set up is, geared to a service that they're not making any money from. You know, they're not zooming in on their profitable, you know, services. So, so these are all things as business owners, you know, we have to zoom in and ensure that these structures are in place to to scale. So tell us. So how do you see, I know you mentioned initially that the caregiving space is is booming, it's blowing up. So what are some of the, you know, the changes that, apart from that growth, the change that you're seeing maybe the next five to 10 years, yeah, you're talk to us about some of those.
Speaker 2 19:39
Well, I mean, I think, you know, what always mystifies me a little bit is that there are so many people that are caring for loved ones, but they don't necessarily self identify as a family caregiver. So I don't know if it's changing, but if I could wave a magic wand and have it change, I would love for the healthcare providers to kind of. Initiate this fast tracking of these family caregivers to support I know, I wish that, you know, I feel like, when patients get a diagnosis, caregivers also get a diagnosis, like the whole world is kind of uprooted as far as what the day to day life looks like, and we focus so much on the patients and how we can help them and make, you know, support them. But there's this other person that's, you know, really, or team of people really, that are attached to this patient, that can be burning out because they're doing all of the things. And so I would love for them to kind of hand, you know, hey, this is, this is a big role for you as the primary caregiver for this person. Here are some resources of support and things that can happen. I do see some places, particularly in corporate America, in faith communities as well other maybe organizations, associations and stuff like that, that are starting to get it, that people are are burning out, that are, you know, have best intentions of caring for other people. And let's take the company example. First of all is like, you know, they're creating things like employee resource groups where they can create community within these organizations, or maybe even segments of their large faith community population, and meeting people where they are so they can help them with their pain points. And so ERGs is a great place where I have been able to kind of tap in and offer my services and resources to those companies so that they can then support their workforce, which is going to make happier and healthier employees that are going to stick around. They're going to recommend people come work for that company, because they're going to feel validated and they're going to feel that they can be productive, because the the resources have been fast tracked to them.
Speaker 1 21:46
Awesome, awesome. Well said. And Elizabeth, I know we, you know, you talk a little, talk a little bit about your company earlier, but we never touched on in your target audience is, because I know some caregivers, you know, they, they're, you know, focus on just, you know, people in a subset here or subset there. Yeah, are you? Do you talk it like everyone you know? Well,
Unknown Speaker 22:08
I mean, I my,
Speaker 2 22:09
my personal thing is I probably attract a lot of sandwich generation caregivers, because that's what I wrote and spoke about for many years, is that squeeze with raising kids and age in helping Indian parents at the same time. Now, I've kind of pivoted. I'm talking more as a sibling caregiver who's supporting my brother, but honestly, like a lot of what I offer, because everything I offer is really about helping that caregiver, that family caregiver, be be happier and healthier and and find that sustainability in their life. So no matter what kind of caregiver you are, I think you're going to find value in the resources that I offer. I do try to curate some of the content that I have. So you know, when you come to my website, happy, healthy caregiver.com, you're hopefully either going to be like you're a new caregiver. It's going to be clear start here. Let me get you on your way. You're someone who's looking for community. You're a male caregiver. You're a dementia caregiver, young caregiver like, Okay, now I've got some resources curated for you find your like minded community that you can identify with, and those resources in there. Or you're completely burned out and you're trying to figure out how to, you know, reclaim your own health and happiness. Okay, let me help you with a certain kind of self care. Are you looking to to be you know, do you need more socialization? Do you need financial self care? Do you need, do you need intellectual with more resources? And so I can kind of gear them towards that way. So those are kind of the paths that I have when people come to the website is like, you're new, you're trying to find community, or you need help with a particular type of self care. Awesome,
Speaker 1 23:43
awesome. And just to follow up on that. So say, I come to the website, and I'm pretty new, so talk to us about your process. What's next? Do you how do you move carry that person to? Yeah,
Speaker 2 23:55
I, you know, I think a couple things. I mean, they're going to go to kind of the main resource page, where they're going to kind of tap into some of the general resources that are available to them. You know, I recommend getting on the the email list of the of the places that seem like they're the right fit for them, and following the folks on on social media. But I also offer that complimentary coaching session because I don't want people to have to, like, spin their wheels and figure out how to, how to navigate this by themselves. I don't pretend to have all of the answers, you know, but we're all kind of on this spectrum. And I might be here, and someone else might be back here, and I can help you kind of lift and get a little bit closer. And so through a complimentary coaching session, I can validate and talk through what they what they've been going through, and say, Oh, how you know maybe this or maybe that, or if I were you, maybe I tried this or that, and that, just that alone can really be what people need in that moment.
Speaker 1 24:53
Awesome, awesome. And well, well said. And I know our listeners and viewers will definitely go check out your website. Up. How can we connect with you? Talk to us about it. Yeah,
Speaker 2 25:02
so, happy healthy caregiver.com is the place, kind of the website you can you'll see social links there on the bottom. Hopefully, you know, you'll get a pop up to say you're invited to join the email list. You can check out the podcast. So that's where I would recommend you start. Happy Healthy caregiver.com
Speaker 1 25:19
Okay, happy, healthy caregiver. Com, so, yes, we a lot of resources. You know, it's actually there. And again, Elizabeth, that was this, this has been great, uh, great information. And I can see the passion for caregiving and,
Speaker 2 25:34
and I know not something you can fake, right? Like, can't, okay,
Speaker 1 25:39
you're authentic. And I can, see in you, yeah, know you're going paces your podcast. Podcast is awesome. Thank you. You're really a great influencer. So thank you so much for joining us and and sharing that great knowledge about the caregiving space. And you know we'll definitely keep in touch.
Speaker 2 25:57
Happy to be here. Thank you so much. Andre All right. Thank you. Applause.
