Let’s Take Action: From Burnout to Blossom
Journalist Richard Lui, who anchors at MSNBC and NBC News, moderates a conversation with two Millennial caregiver-entrepreneur-innovators: Jessica McGlory, who founded Guaranteed to transform end-of-life care and Neal K. Shah, who launched CareYaya to connect experienced student caregivers with care recipients.
Following their discussion, we invite you to join small peer-led breakout room sessions guided by the following prompts:
- What are your greatest challenges as a caregiver?
- If you’ve experienced any growth as a caregiver, what does that look like? Have you gained insights about yourself?
- What action can you take to transform grief into growth?
Jessica McGlory is the Founder and CEO of Guaranteed, a tech-forward startup transforming the end-of-life healthcare experience from terminal prognosis through bereavement. Inspired to start the company from the personal experience of being her father's caregiver during his time in hospice care, Jessica came up with the idea of a tech-enabled hospice care delivery model that was focused on dedicating support to both the patient and the family. Prior to Guaranteed, Jessica helped grow customer centric brands like Bombas as an early stage startup operator.
Neal K. Shah is the CEO of CareYaya Health Technologies, one of the fastest-growing health tech startups in America. He runs a social enterprise and applied research lab utilizing artificial intelligence and human capital innovation to advance health equity through technology. Neal is a “Top Healthcare Voice” on LinkedIn with a 30k+ following, having led partnerships with top healthcare systems in America. Neal is a former hedge fund manager turned social entrepreneur after deeply personal experiences with caregiving. Motivated by creativity and humanitarian progress, he co-founded CareYaya. Its flagship product is a technology platform that lets people quickly book experienced caregivers that are uniquely all students in the healthcare field, helping expand the care workforce amidst a critical caregiver shortage. In addition, CareYaya is launching new applications of artificial intelligence to help people better manage caregiving, aging and serious illness. Its mission is to empower family caregivers and create a better future for care. Previously, Neal founded and managed a $250 million investment fund in New York, including a focus on healthcare investments, and prior to that, was a partner at a $1.5 billion private equity and hedge fund focusing on a variety of sectors. He started his career in investment banking at Credit Suisse First Boston, after graduating from the University of Pennsylvania with degrees in philosophy and economics.
Richard Lui (moderator) is a journalist, anchoring at MSNBC and NBC News and has covered many of the network’s major breaking stories, including the Arab Spring, the deaths of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and Senator John McCain, the Newtown massacre, and more. His breaking news field reporting includes being on the ground for the Paris and San Bernardino ISIS-related terror attacks, and in Ferguson and Baltimore during widespread civil unrest. Before joining MSNBC, Lui spent five years at CNN Worldwide, anchoring at CNN Headline News. Lui became the first Asian American male in America to anchor a daily national cable network news program in 2007. Lui has received awards for his reporting, including Peabody and Emmy team awards, NEA’s Human and Civil Rights Award, AAJA Suzanne Ahn Civil Rights and Social Justice Award, Champion in Media Award from the Multicultural Media Correspondents Dinner at the National Press Club, Freedom of the Press Award from NAISA Global, and others. Richard is also an AARP Caregiving Champion, Alzheimer’s Association Celebrity Champion, and BrightFocus Foundation Ambassador.
His first book, Enough About Me, published by HarperCollins Zondervan, focuses on the unexpected power of selflessness. In it, he addresses the “selfish pandemic” of our time and accessible ways to personally and institutionally counter the problem. His first feature film, SKY BLOSSOM, focused on caregiver kids in Military Families. The film was inspired by Lui’s eight years of long-distance caregiving for his father, traveling 20 hours roundtrip three times a month from New York to California. His second documentary feature, UNCONDITIONAL, released in 2023, is a groundbreaking 7-year long effort shedding light on caregiver’s mental health.
https://www.unconditionalmovie.com/
About the Series
Cultivating Caregiving: Seeds of Sorrow, Gardens of Growth
More than 53 million unpaid Americans provide care to a spouse, elderly parent or relative, or to a child with special needs. The caregiving experience most often includes struggle, stress, fatigue, guilt, and grief. But can it also be a life-transforming experience to find purpose? A discovery of what matters most for you and the person in your care?
Caregiving is commonly described as an experience in which caregivers cultivate resilience and endurance. But are there opportunities for caregivers to not only bounce back, but also bounce forward? Is there a new appreciation for life? A chance to rebuild a relationship? A possibility to increase personal strength and collective solidarity with other family caregivers?
Programming produced by Reimagine staff and its collaborative community of event hosts will focus on a number of themes related to caregiving:
- For caregivers of all ages, what kind of support, resources, and opportunities are available?
- What are the ways in which caregivers navigate and process anticipatory grief as their loved ones decline?
- What challenges and opportunities are there for long-distance caregivers?
- What solutions are there to our crisis of care and the absence of guaranteed paid leave?
- How are health systems and workplaces adapting to the needs of caregivers, particularly those from immigrant families, those of diverse cultural, spiritual, and faith traditions, and those with limited English proficiency?
- What do you say to a burnt-out family caregiver to provide them with comfort? Better yet, what do you DO for them?
About RCI
The Rosalynn Carter Institute for Caregivers was established in 1987 by former First Lady Rosalynn Carter to promote the health, strength, and resilience of America’s 53 million family caregivers. RCI fulfills its promise to champion the family caregiver by building cross-sector partnerships, leading research projects and strategic initiatives, developing and implementing evidence-based programs, and advocating for public policy.
About Reimagine
Reimagine is a nonprofit organization catalyzing a uniquely powerful community–people of different backgrounds, ages, races, and faiths (and no faith) coming together in the hopes of healing ourselves and the world. We specifically support each other in facing adversity, loss, and mortality and–at our own pace– actively channeling life's biggest challenges into meaningful action and growth.
