Life After Caregiving: Being a Care Leader

Mark Wilson spent his career of more than 25 years heading the Leadership and Organization Effectiveness & HR functions at Fortune 500 companies, including PepsiCo, Taco Bell and YUM! Brands. And yet, when his mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, he left his career behind to take care of her at home.  

He didn’t know how he would care for her at the beginning of his caregiving journey, but he had the resolve and ambition to figure it out and learn as much about Alzheimer’s care and caregiving as he could.  He was able to apply his corporate experience and leadership skills to create the best care team possible for his mom.  

His mission was to have her home, have her be as happy as possible, and for her to live as long and healthy as possible. He fulfilled his mission. 

Since his mom passed, he has been a guest on podcasts and through them he was encouraged to write his book, "Breakthrough Alzheimer's Care: A Guide to Finding Courage, Longevity, and Joy on the Journey". He was also asked to be on the Advisory Board for the UCI MIND Center.  He leads Alzheimer’s Support Groups, advocates in Washington for Funds for Alzheimer’s Research, mentors High School Students who want to share education and fundraising in the community and he does his own fundraising for the Alzheimer’s Association. 

It was because of a tragic medically negligent surgical mistake that shortened his mom’s long Alzheimer’s journey that inspired him to share his care leader learning on Alzheimer’s care and Patients’ Rights to give families hope and confidence that they can make a huge difference in the lives of their loved ones.  He states that “Just because there is still no cure for dementia doesn’t mean you can’t make a big difference in their lives and your life as well.” 

Mark’s website: The Bold Care Leader

(Thank you to Pixabay Folk Acoustic Guitar 138361)

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:00

Thank you for tuning in to the Island Treasures podcast. We value the insights shared by our guests and hosts, but it's important to note that their personal experiences are intended to inform and encourage, and not to replace professional, legal, or medical advice. With that, we are ready for today's exciting episode. Hello and welcome to Island Treasures Podcast. For years, we've walked alongside caregivers in the midst of their caregiving journey, offering resources, support, encouragement, and community. Now, as we shift our focus, we'll be exploring what comes after caregiving. I'm your host, Alison van Schie, inviting you into conversations with former caregivers. Each episode features honest reflections on what comes next, stories of resilience, renewal, and rediscovery. I'm glad you're here. Let's explore new treasures together. Today's guest stepped out of his successful executive career and into caregiving without knowing what it would entail. He did this to care for his mother who was living with Alzheimer's disease. What followed her diagnosis was a long journey shaped by learning, leadership, and motivated by love and a commitment to creating the best possible life for her at home. In our conversation, he shares what he discovered along the way, how he rebuilt his life after her passing, and how that experience continues to guide his advocacy and support for others. He tells it best. So join me now as I welcome Mark Wilson to the podcast. So welcome Mark Wilson to the Island Treasures podcast. I'm thrilled to have you here with me today.

Speaker 2:19

Thank you, Alison. I'm excited too. I I can't wait to uh have our conversation on your podcast. It's so wonderful. So I'm happy to be here. Thank you for inviting me.

Speaker 1 2:29

Definitely. So let's get started with a brief synopsis of why you're here, your caregiving story.

Speaker 2:36

Yeah, I was um an executive at Taco Bell for a long, long time, leading the HR leadership development, training functions, and some other things. And then my mom was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, and um I was committed to taking care of her. I left the workplace long before I was even eligible for early retirement because it was a priority that she get the best care possible. And I thought, okay, I don't know how to do that, but I'm gonna figure that out. So that was my mission. My mission was to have her home, have her be as happy as possible, uh, and also live as long and healthy as possible. So that was that was what I did. I figured out through my ambition and my resolve to learn all I could about Alzheimer's care, I realized that there's lots and lots of little things that can be done that help both happiness and health and longevity. So since there's no cure for the disease, I thought, why not do all these dozens and dozens of little things that there's some evidence will help? And they did. My mom was very happy on her journey. She lived almost three times longer than her neurologist thought she would. And so it worked. And then I also was sort of accidentally, uh, without even realizing it, applying a lot of my leadership and HR craft to my caregiving. So after about a year, I realized I couldn't do a good job by myself, so I brought in some home care people to help. And I hired the best people because I knew how to hire good people from my career role. I I led them, I coached them through my knowledge of coaching skills and so forth. And and so, yeah, so I think my HR and leadership background helped me lead my I call them the core care team, which are the direct caregivers that helped me day to day, and then extended care team are doctors and physical therapists and home dentists and all the kind of experts that came into the house to help me with various aspects of my mom's care. So I was a I was the care leader of all these folks that helped me help her, and I think it worked because she was happy, and these caregivers that I ended up hiring were just so amazing. I yeah, I made a few mistakes in the beginning before I honed in on what great caregiving looked like. And then and these these people were so amazing. In fact, I'm still friends with all five of my mom's full-time caregivers, which she needed the last six or seven years of her life because she needed 24-7 care. And we're still friends. We still celebrate their birthdays, their family's birthdays, and so they're like family, which was awesome.

Speaker 1 5:11

So that's a great outcome um for you for life after caregiving. Um, so you went into caregiving not knowing what caregiving involved then, but you just took your corporate knowledge and applied it. So that was a unique approach to caregiving.

Speaker 5:26

Totally. I knew nothing about Alzheimer's, I knew nothing about caregiving, but I I'm a pretty good learner. So I just researched, I I talked to experts. And I'm used to dealing with senior executives, so I'm not afraid to call, you know, people and say, okay, what about this? What about that? And so, you know, I learned fast.

Speaker 1 5:44

Sounds like it. So, how how long was the caregiving journey? How long did your mom live with Alzheimer's?

Speaker 5:50

Yeah, she she was supposed to live only five years because she had Alzheimer's and vascular dementia and some comorbidities around cardiovascular problems. So, but she ended up living 15 years, and she could have even lived longer but for a medical malpractice mistake later in her journey, which uh was horrific. Um, that's a kind of a whole separate story, but anyway, so yeah, she could have probably even lived longer with all the things that we were doing to help her. Um, so yeah, so three times at minimum.

Speaker 1 6:22

So you managed to honor her desire to stay at home.

Speaker 6:28

Yes. No, that was really important. I knew she'd be happier at home. I knew I had more control over the things I did for her at home than I would in a facility. And so that was really important to me. And I was happy to give up my career. If the roles were reversed, she would do the same thing for me. I know that. So it was like it was an easy decision. People thought it was crazy. You're leaving your successful executive career in the middle of, you know, what are you doing? I said, no, easy decision. And to me, caring for my mom was the hardest thing I've ever done, but it was also the most rewarding thing I've ever done in my life. Um, and so it was a good decision.

Speaker 1 7:04

Well, and it's it's opened a door for you now.

Speaker 7:08

Yes, yeah, I do. It's funny. After my mom passed, my boss, who was a CEO, said, Why don't you come back to work? You're still pretty young. I said, No, I have a new mission. I have Alzheimer's help, is my mission, helping families who are dealing with this horrific disease. That's my new mission. So after my mom passed, I did a lot of things. I started leading support groups to help Alzheimer's Association. I did some fundraising. I've been to Washington, D.C. to help raise funds through Congress. And a funny thing is, somebody, I did a couple podcasts at UC Irvine's Alzheimer's Center, right after my mom passed, because I knew the director over there. And she said, Do some podcasts. You got some really good ideas. So I did these podcasts, and people came out of the woodwork and they said, You should write a book about all these great ideas. And I thought, write a book? I don't know anything about writing a book, but it was during COVID world. So the next day, after I heard this feedback, I thought, oh, maybe I can read up and write a book. So I write some notes, and the next day, some more notes, and six months later I had a draft of a book. And then it took me almost a year to find a you know traditional good publisher. Um, and so the book just came out about six weeks ago. So I'm excited. So it's all about Alzheimer's care, and it's like 80% of a manual, how to how do you apply leadership to caregiving, how do you apply these creative ideas for longevity and and happiness, and 20% kind of a memoir of our personal story and journey. So I'm excited.

Speaker 1 8:39

Congratulations. Thank you so much. Awesome. You are a published author. I have your book. I totally have your book. And uh I my goal was to finish reading it before we spoke today. I'm almost through it. Um, and it's very good. I've got lots of highlights in it and uh lots of takeaways from me. Um, so congratulations again. Thank you so much. You're very welcome. We will talk a little bit more about your book or a lot more about your book, but I'd like to take you back through when your mom passed, you had this incredible relationship, this love story with your mom. Um, could you share with the listeners how that transition of loss went for you?

Speaker 9:20

Very hard. Uh, I mean, we were super close, and because my mom's death was due to a medical malpractice, it was she she the end of her life was a lot harder than it should have been. I mean, she had a surgery at the end that was unnecessary, she had a horrible infection, she suffered, and so because of that, it was gut-wrenching when she passed away. And so I was in deep, you know, deep depression for a while. And um a couple things sort of came up. One is my friend said, Why don't you sue these SOBs, you know, for this malpractice? And a quick aside is I looked into it and all the the I found leading law firms, they all said the same thing. Because your mom had was such such an advanced case of Alzheimer's, and because she had some comorbidities and her age, well you would win this lawsuit, but because of that, the incremental pain and suffering, which is what the jury awards are based on, would not be enough to merit the army of people we'd have to bring in to fight the army of people the insurance companies, doctors, hospitals would throw up at us, and it wouldn't be worth our time. We can't take your case. And I thought, oh my gosh, how could that be? I mean, that means, you know, our our older population, you know, somebody in their late 80s are gonna have always gonna have some comorbidity. So that means that there's no accountability for mistakes, medical mistakes. It's just so wrong. So anyway, that process sort of got me worked up a little bit. So so I decided that I have to do something positive because I knew from my executive coaching career that positive action often changes mindset. So I knew that philosophy. So I thought, okay, I gotta do something positive here because I'm you know gonna lose it. So I thought two things. One, I started volunteering for this consumer watchdog group that does patients' rights advocacy, and we ended up changing, you know, a a law in California that is gonna help patients' rights. So that was positive. I felt good about that. And then I got involved with Alzheimer's Association to do these support groups and other things, and then my book was ongoing. So I started just jumping in with positive actions designed to help other people, and I think that slowly helped me with my grief. Um, and I also saw a therapist at the same time and did some other things like that.

Speaker 1 11:40

So no, thank you. Thank you for sharing that. And it sounds like you channeled some of that frustration from not being able to sue um because of the projected outcome. Um, you were able to channel that into patient advocacy.

Speaker 11:55

That's awesome. Yeah, it was good. And I learned a lot. I mean, I did learn that the uh I call it the medical industrial complex puts a lot of money into legislators' campaigns. And so it's an uphill battle for patients to to get rights changed when the medical world is basically buying off many, many politicians. So that's you, yeah.

Speaker 1 12:20

So is there a team that you worked with then in that uh in that role?

Speaker 12:25

Yeah, Consumer Watchdog is a uh an organization that does advocacy for all kinds of consumer things from insurance to patients' rights to anyway. So they have some full-time people, and I was a volunteer advocate with them, and we would we would present information and ideas and and testimonials to the state legislature here in California.

Speaker 1 12:48

Well, I'm I'm sure lots of people are appreciative of that.

Speaker 12:51

Thank you.

Speaker 1 12:52

Yeah, so that was your transition, it was tough. And then you started writing this book and let's open the pages of this book.

Speaker 13:04

Okay. Yeah, as I mentioned, it has two sort of themes. One is all the small actions I took to help my mom live happier and healthier, and then the other theme is leadership. How do you kind of transition in your mindset from a caregiver who's kind of barely hanging on uh in a world where Alzheimer's has no cure to an empowered leader leading all aspects of your loved one's care? And so there's uh in the book, I talk about the mindset shifts, and I offer some a lot of practical actions to help you with that shift so that you feel, you know, I I felt accountable for all aspects of my mom's care, you know, from medical to care. And that leadership mindset of accountability is so important. And also I thought, okay, I there's a concept called mood elevator I learned early in my mind.

Speaker 1 13:53

I was gonna ask you about that. That's actually on my notes.

Speaker 13:57

So I mean, it's a simple idea. When you're low in the mood elevator, you're blaming other people, you feel like a victim, there's no hope. And you're not gonna be a very empowered care leader, and you're not gonna help your loved one very much when you have that mindset. So in the book, I talk about two ways to kind of raise yourself up out of that basement and into high, high levels on the elevator, mood elevator. And to me, they fall into two categories that I mentioned in the book. One is internal and the other is external. The internal things are get in touch with your mission, get in touch with the why. And people have different ways to do that. I I thought about okay, how do I stay courageous? I mean, things like you know, my grandfather who came from Italy at 12 years old, all by himself, to basically start a new world life for his family and bring the rest of his family over. I thought, how much courage does that take by himself at 12? I can at least do this hard thing taking care of my mom if he can do that. Okay. And then, you know, I also kind of tapped into my faith, you know, I tried prayed a lot. That helps internally. And then the mission of okay, you know, love is about sacrifice. I mean, when when there's no sacrifice, it still can be love, but it's it's you know, you're tested when you have to sacrifice and give up a lot for your loved one. And so I thought, okay, this is a sacrifice, but I'm willing to do it because I love my mom. So those are internal things, external things, external kind of sources of staying high in the mood elevator, things like exercise, eating right, um, getting some socialization, which is very good for caregivers. And so those things are ways to stay high in the mood elevator. And then I also talk about, you know, what leadership is all about. I mean, there's the best leaders of all time, had some common traits, and I talk about that in my book too. And so it's about feeling empowered, and and then I also include many, many tools in the book that are kind of HR 101 kind of stuff, like how do you interview a caregiver? And I include interview questions and criteria to look for, and how do you evaluate those caregivers, how do you give them a trial shift and what do you look for? And then how do you coach a caregiver? And I led people on my team at work that knew a lot more about their specialty than I did, but I was able to coach them because I knew how to ask good questions. And so, same thing with caregiving. Your caregiver probably knows a lot more about caregiving than you do. But if you know how to ask the questions, you can get them to discover ways that they can improve and even become better caregivers. And so the coaching questions are in the book. And so, and then also the there are five pillars of care. One is leadership, and I talk a lot about that. Second is safety, and that's you know, that's common sense. You know, your loved one's not going to be happy or live longer or healthier if they're not safe. I mean, so that's a basic. And I talk a lot about how do you make the environment safe, whether you're whether your loved one's at home or in a facility, you know, make sure that if you're in there in a facility, these things are in place. And if they don't, you know, manage the relationship with the facility or move them to another facility because basic safety has to be in place. And there's a number of checklists I have in the book about safety. Third is the leadership part, which is by far the longest part about how do you lead your direct caregivering team, how do you lead the extended care team of doctors. Doctors do not like to be led, but I I have learned a lot about how do you lead doctors in the process. I have a good checklist for questions to ask the doctor if your loved one has dementia and uh what to ask them, how to evaluate a doctor, whether they're a good fit for you and your loved one, you know, when to fire a caregiver or when to fire a doctor or in there.

Speaker 1 17:40

And and didn't you speak about the importance of uh having time with the doctor?

Speaker 17:46

Yes. Oh yeah, oh yeah, that's important. And you you deserve that, and your loved one deserves taking a little extra time to answer your questions, to focus on care, to really be thoughtful about what's unique about your loved one that's different than the standard, you know, generic patient. And so I have ways in the book to slow down the doctor so that he takes the time with you. Uh some of them are pretty basic. One of them was was I only had to use it two times when the care when the doctor was, I call him a world champ speedster. So I I I learned that if you just slowly slip in front of the door while your loved one is talking to the doctor, they're on the table or whatever the doctor, whatever your your loved one is, you don't actually like you know physically like hit them or block them, but just the the fact that you're standing in front of the door, they think twice before running out of the room.

Speaker 1 18:39

Yeah, yeah. I remember that you're standing at the door frame.

Speaker 18:42

Yeah, exactly. You start in front of the door, and so they just think before they run out of the room. It it actually worked.

Speaker 1 18:48

I bet you it did because it's uh it's a practical and you're there. It's physical, right? It's physical, it's not like you're sitting beside your loved one and the other side of the room. It's yeah, exactly.

Speaker 19:01

So, yeah, so pillar number three is all about these various leadership acts. Pillar four is um it's kind of a catch-all around nutrition, supplements, um, medical prescriptions, and all that kind of stuff is in four. And there's a lot out there that uh that can make a big difference for your loved one if you do a lot of little things. There's no cure for Alzheimer's, but there's a lot of little things that can be done between nutrition and supplements and medications and all that is in there. And then the last one is I call it surround sound environment. Yeah. And there's two aspects to that. One is the physical environment. And my mom was a kindergarten teacher, so I knew she loved, you know, stuffed animals and kid things and drawings. And so we've created um surround sound physical environment of fun for her, representing her kindergarten experience. And we have stuffed animals, and when she do drawings, which she did a lot of drawings, I would we put them all over the house. And so, you know, like at kindergarten, you would be proud of her pictures and she would see see them and she'd be proud that we're proud. And so the physical environment should reflect fun and love. And you know, your loved one may like different things. Um, if they're an outdoorsy person, put you know, outdoors pictures everywhere or whatever it will make them smile and have fun. That's physical environment. And then the people environment is make sure everybody who has any touch point with your loved one is fun, is caring, loving, compassionate. No, we don't want anybody who's critical, we don't want anybody that's grumpy, you know, that's not reflecting the kind of experience that you want for your loved one. And so I manage, made sure that whether it's caregivers, doctors, friends I would coach before they came to see my mom. Yeah, anybody that you know touches my mom has to be positive, loving, compassionate. So that's the surround sound part. And I think that helps quite a bit because when you're in a good mood and you're emotionally positive, it does affect your not only your happiness, but it affects your physical. There's a connection between physical health and emotional health. And and I think all those things are an integrated care system that fits together. So all that's in my book, too.

Speaker 1 21:10

So and I believe that uh folks who are living with Alzheimer's or dementia, they have an emotion detector, like not emotion detector, but an emotion detector. And uh they pick up on on your mood. And yeah, you don't want a Debbie Downer to come visit your mom. It's like no exactly.

Speaker 21:27

Oh, yeah. And it was so funny, even doctors. Um, you know, a lot of times they don't want to take the time and be patient with an Alzheimer's patient. Some of the doctors did, and they were wonderful, but a lot of them like ignored my mom and talked to me. And I didn't like that. You know, I wanted them to, you know, pay attention to my mom. And even though my mom couldn't talk, which is one of her first symptoms, she was there. I mean, she could smile, she knew, she to your point, she knew the emotions, she had feelings. She needed to be seen as important by a doctor and not, you know, just like passed over and and And ignored. So that's another was another criteria in me selecting good doctors for my mom.

Speaker 1 22:05

Yeah. It sounds to me like you were fortunate though that you had a pool of people you could select. Like I've worked in a lot of rural places and and the pickings are slim.

Speaker 22:16

Yeah. No, I that was a blessing because I live in a suburban area where there's lots of choices on caregivers, lots of choices on doctors. And so yeah, that is a fortunate for folks that live in an urban or suburban area. Yeah.

Speaker 1 22:29

Yeah. No, that's that's really good. You uh touched on most of the things I noted. Uh one is you call your book a leader's playbook. I think that's really cool.

Speaker 22:40

Thank you. Well, I think that's important. It's a it's a playbook. There's, you know, act like a sports. I'm not a huge sports fan, but I know that playbooks, you know, quarterbacks, whatever have a playbook, coaches have a playbook. It's kind of like that. It's like if you follow these tools, you follow these action items, it'll help.

Speaker 1 22:55

So yeah, yeah, no guarantees, but it should uh lift lift a little bit.

Speaker 23:01

Every situation is different, but there's a good chance that most of these things will have some positive benefit.

Speaker 1 23:06

So yeah. And uh there's one other thing I I picked up on, and you say that great results depend upon great leadership.

Speaker 23:16

Yeah, no, as if you think about history and you think about any, I mean, I worked in corporate world for a long time. It's all about leadership. I mean, you go you go to anything, you go to a store, retail experience, yeah, and you don't get good service or the people don't know what they're doing, that's a leadership problem, you know. And it's the same idea with caregiving. If you're an effective leader and you bring the best people to surround your loved one with and do the best things, as a leader, you're making that happen. That's gonna make a big difference. It's a very similar idea.

unknown 23:47

Yeah.

Speaker 1 23:48

And a lot is that energy you're talking about too, that positivity. And yeah.

Speaker 23:52

Yeah, very important.

Speaker 1 23:54

So the book is called, let's just um talk about the book so folks can find it and purchase it and then read it and highlight it like I did.

Speaker 24:03

Yeah, it's called Breakthrough Alzheimer's Care, and it's available on Amazon, it's available on Barnesandnoble.com, thriftbooks, a couple different places. But you can learn more about the book if you go on my website, which is boldcare leader.com, and there's information about all the kind of different aspects of the book. If you provide your email, I'll send you some of the tools that are in the book. And um yeah, so you kind of learn more about what's what's in the clue in the book if you check out the website, boldcare leader.com. So it just can't, I just put it up. I've fired hired some teenager to help me put a website together because I had no idea how to do that. But I think it's pretty good.

Speaker 1 24:42

So well, good for you. You'll you'll need one, you'll need a website, definitely. Yeah. So where are you now? Like you finished your book, you're still probably supporting um patient rights and also the Alzheimer's. Are you still doing the support groups?

Speaker 25:00

Although, oh, my support groups are my favorite thing. I do a couple of support groups, and I love it because these people come in there desperate and they're crying, and then the you know, the group itself is just awesome. And just in fact, night before last, I had a group meeting, and this woman that was just crying, and she had you know, was just didn't know what to do. And and the group was amazing, they just like rallied to help her. And one of the things on her list was, you know, her yard, her husband at Alzheimer's couldn't really do anything in the yard, and she had some physical things, and and so people volunteered. They said, Well, we'll come do your yard. I mean, what talk about support and help, and and they did, they signed up, they said, Okay, you know, give me a list, I'll we'll come over and we'll schedule a time to do to do your yard work. And that that's it, just in one small example of how the group kind of helps each other, and they come out happy and smiling. And so the support groups just are just makes me smile when I see how people are supported and helped. Yeah, so I do that. Um in two weeks, I'm going back to Washington to present to Congress for more research funding for Alzheimer's. And so, yeah, I'm still on the same advocacy journey. I'm having fun with it. I just finished a nine-week program. This is a funny thing, nine-week program, and um, it's a pilot program for the Alzheimer's Association where they are fine, uh they identify high schoolers all over the county. So there was about 150 high school students who were tasked with fundraising for Alzheimer's Association and to educate the community about dementia and Alzheimer's. And they knew I did executive coaching for Taco Bell, the Alzheimer's Association. They said, Well, you want to be a mentor, you know, for some of these high school teams? And I thought, mentor? I don't know anything about high schools, I don't have any children. And so I thought, yeah, sure, why not? So I've been meeting with these captains of four of the teams, and each time I meet with them, you know, I kind of coach them and recognize their good work and give them ideas. And but there's always some high school slang word that comes out of the meeting, and I don't want to sound like an old fogey. So I don't tell them, I don't know what you're talking about, but I take a note and then either Google it or talk to a friend of mine that has high school um you know kids, and I talk, I call her up, I say, what in the world does that phrase mean? And then she'd explain it. And I said, I still don't quite get it. Can you use it in a sentence for me? So I'm like learning a new language. But this is an example of you know some something fun with Alzheimer's. I'm trying to help help with, and it's a journey. Yeah.

Speaker 1 27:32

I love uh that they're given the opportunity to learn about Alzheimer's disease early on. They will also, because of that, learn what caregiving is and how it impacts, and it's so important to be prepared for caregiving. So I love that you're doing that.

Speaker 27:48

Yeah, it's so great. And then then in return, they're gonna get letters of recommendations for college and you know stuff like that. So yeah, it's it's a good, it's a good, it's a pilot program for the 150 chapters all over the country that we we were doing. So hopefully others will catch on.

Speaker 1 28:03

Yeah, I love that idea. Yeah, that's very cool. Yeah. Um, do you have a quote you'd like to share with the listeners?

Speaker 28:10

Oh my gosh, a quote.

Speaker 1 28:11

Um could be from your book.

Speaker 28:17

I don't know. Let's see. Um, I don't know if it's a quote from my book, but the there's a concept that I really believe in. Um there's a book that influenced me early on. Um, I can't remember the author's name. I think she passed a couple years ago. It's called Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway. And I kind of believed in that philosophy when I wrote the book and took care of my mom. I thought, okay, if you're afraid of doing something, that's a good reason to do it. Because the idea is if you feel the fear and then you just take a first step and do it, then you're gonna feel good about the experience, and then you're gonna be courageous enough to take the second step, and that's gonna it's gonna build a virtuous cycle of positivity and action. And I kind of felt that way with my with my mom and caregiving. It's like I had no idea what I was gonna do, and I was afraid. I thought, okay, I wonder if I could be a good caregiver for my mom. I wonder if I can figure all this out. And I just like stepped into it, did one thing at a time, and felt the fear about it, but then did it and got better at it. And so I think life is a lot like that. I mean, you know, you can do more than you thought because it's action. And uh, and then you get the results. And my grandmother was so funny. I I mentioned this in the book. She had a big positive influence on me. She was always super positive. And if I was afraid to do something, whether at work or in school, I would usually ask her, we called her Nanny, and I said, Nanny, should I do this? I'm a little afraid to do it. And she'd she'd look at me in the eyes and she said, Has that ever been done before? And I thought, and you think about it. I mean, everything has been done by somebody sometime. And I said, Yeah, that's been done before, and somebody's doing that now. And she thought, well, she would tell me, she said, Mark, if it's been done before, there's no reason why you can't do it too. So I thought about that. I thought that's kind of like feel the fear and do it anyway. And that that philosophy, I think, has stayed with me.

Speaker 1 30:14

So yeah, and you hear that voice, you hear her voice.

Speaker 30:17

Oh, all the time. Yeah, yeah. She was so positive. And oh my god. In fact, it's so funny. Personality-wise, my sister is a lot more critical, uh, suspicious of people, and I need that gene because I am like way too trusting. And I think I got that grandmother. And and yeah, yeah, well, it's a little bit tangent, but I've I've been taking advantage of, you know, a couple times because of that naivete I have.

Speaker 1 30:42

Well, we're not gonna take advantage of you in this podcast, I assure you of that.

Speaker 30:47

But I'm slowly learning to be a little bit more skeptical.

Speaker 1 30:49

Oh, yeah. It's unfortunate that we have to be wary all the time, but we do, yeah.

Speaker 30:55

Yeah, so I got that positivity, Gene, from my grandmother for sure.

Speaker 1 30:58

Well, I'm grateful that you did. And uh I I love your quote. Like that, that is a very good quote. So yeah.

Speaker 31:05

Thank you.

Speaker 1 31:05

Well done. So you've got your website and we know what your book title is. Can folks find you on social media?

Speaker 31:14

Yes, I'm on uh LinkedIn, I'm on Facebook, and I'm on Instagram. So you can search my name, Mark Wilson, or or search my boldcare leader.com or bold care leader, I think, on most of these. Yeah.

Speaker 1 31:28

Okay.

Speaker 31:29

Yeah. Have fun.

Speaker 1 31:31

Yeah. Is there anything you'd like to add before we completely conclude today?

Speaker 31:36

The only thing I would encourage if you're struggling with caregiving for a loved one, is just do it and be courageous, be brave. And even though your loved one, if they have dementia, may not appear to be grateful for what you're doing, they may not thank you directly. And I know we all like to be thanked and recognized, but they they appreciate it, even if they can't express it. Um so trust, trust your loved one, trust me, that that will pay off big time for their experience and your experience too. Because if you don't, at some point you're gonna regret it. And so just jump in, do the best you can, take one step at a time, but do it, even if you're not getting a lot of recognition for it or appreciation from your loved one. It's really important. They they need you now more than ever. Be there for them, please.

Speaker 1 32:31

Great final words, and I'm going to offer my appreciation to you. So thank you so much for joining me today.

Speaker 32:38

Thank you, Alison. You're awesome. I I love being part of your show, and I'm so grateful. Thank you.

Speaker 1 32:43

Thanks, Mark. Mark's story held so many practical insights about leading and coordinating a care team. Tailoring support around the care needs of a loved one living with Alzheimer's or facing other care challenges. He also addressed what happens when the caregiving chapter ends, and how we face yet another transition that asks us to grieve, to rebuild, and sometimes to discover a new mission. Through support groups, patient rights advocacy, mentoring young people, and the creation of his caregiver playbook, Mark has transformed loss into purpose. His encouragement to feel the fear and do it anyway, along with his grandmother's wisdom, if it's been done before, there is no reason you can't do it too, offers support and encouragement to caregivers. If this episode resonated with you, please share it with someone who may need support in their own life after caregiving journey. And thank you, as always, for listening to the Island Treasures podcast. And to Mark Wilson. Thank you for sharing your caregiving insights. See you next episode.