Michael George - DE - email linkedin schedule

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Welcome back to another exciting episode of Investing Yourself, the digital Entrepreneur podcast. With your podcast mogul, feel better. Today's guest is bringing a remarkable. Wow, a remarkable perspective to the table. One that speaks to anyone. Balancing the roles of work, home, and the vital, often overwhelming responsibility of caregiving. If you're feeling the weight of those responsibilities or navigating life as a family caregiver, this episode is for you. Our guest is not only a coach, author, international speaker, he is someone who has lived this journey firsthand for the past few years.

30 years as a family caregiver and a cancer survivor. He knows the sacrifices, the struggles, and the resiliency it takes to support loved ones in times of need. In 2015, he co founded Soaring Families with his wife, creating a unique support system for caregivers that combine his personal expertise with his expertise in people leadership and team building. Today, he's here to share his powerful insights and a unique formula to help family caregivers find balance, peace of mind and renewed energy. If you're ready to transform your caregiving experience and reclaim joy in your life, get ready to be inspired by the one, the only, Michael. George Michael. Thank you so much for being here.

It's great to be here. Thank you.

So we're going to jump off, straight off, straight into the thing. Why did you decide to start Soaring Families and jump into this entrepreneurial world of ours?

Well, I, I guess I would say it's. It was more of a, a calling than anything else. It wasn't really about I want to start a business. I want to, you know, do all these things. But, you know, given the, the journey that we've been on and the journey that we were on in, in early days, it was, it was a big, big struggle and we learned some things along the way that kind of kept us, you know, on track. And seeing all the families who were dealing with similar struggles who weren't on track, that was the kind of eye opening experience for me that said you know, why are they not on track the way I was? And, and it was, it was more of a, well, I have things I can help them with. They don't have to go through all the hurdles and the ups and downs like we did. They'll have their own to do, but we can help them a lot.

And so that's came the idea of Soaring Families is to help families navigate this journey and help them to see that it's not all pain and suffering and sacrifice. Those are things that happen. But there's a lot more to it than that. So that was kind of the starting point and then it was finding our way through. Okay, well, how do you help them? What can you offer them? What does that look like? Is it sitting down with people? Is it providing them, you know, guidance and training and all of the above? So that's kind of where things started and it continues to evolve. I have to say. You know, we learn new things every day and it's in ways to help people and we're going to continue to do that as, as long as we can. And the film that you get from it is just, it's just truly amazing.

I want to touch on, I, I know it's somewhat of a personal story, the reason why you started Soaring Families. Could you just let us know a little bit about what the, the evolution to becoming the soaring families, why, how you became a family caregiver and what you're, what, what led to this?

Sure. So we have three adult children and our youngest, Ben, was born with complex care needs. And it was a total surprise. We had no idea. Everything was, you know, it was a, I guess a typical pregnancy and everything seemed to be going, you know, by the book. But in the first hour we knew something was wrong. And the, the specialists, you know, took him away and realized that there was, you know, health wise, there was something seriously wrong. And it took about seven days to figure out what, what was going on, what the long term outlook was.

And so we were just thrown into it. You know, we had no idea what, what the issues would be. It didn't even know what, you know, what disabilities or even that word meant. And it was, you know, you're thrown at a deep end and there's, you know, and there's a tsunami coming at you at the same time. And so it was, you know, fight or flight. And we've, we didn't do a good job in the early years. We didn't really know where to go, who to turn to. And there wasn't really A whole lot of support.

And somehow, some way, we did find our way through all that chaos and realizing that, you know, despite all of Ben's challenges, that he was a, you know, smart, social, loving person, that we just had to find a way to get beyond the, you know, sort of the physical barriers or the things that you see and try to bring that out. And really, I would say that it was his, I guess, love of life and desire to keep going is kind of what's inspired us. And we saw things totally different. And it, it's, you know, there's still highs and lows every day. You know, things don't go the way you planned. They never do. But that was. That was kind of our.

That was the game changer and sort of the life changer for us that, of course, you're not prepared for. But you, I don't know, you just find a way to keep going.

I love that. It's one of the biggest things for entrepreneurs is just continue going, punching through those hard walls. When Ben was born and as he was growing up, were you always an entrepreneur or was Ben's birth kind of like the birth of the entrepreneurial spirit that started soaring families, or was soaring families kind of another step in your entrepreneurial journey?

No, it didn't start that way. I guess after, oh, I would probably say five or six years, we kind of got our legs under us and had, you know, some other families who had gone through similar things to give us some guidance and point us in the right direction. But the first, I guess, foray into it was I thought, well, I want to write a book. I want to find a way to sort of capture all the emotion and all the turmoil that we went through, because I know if we had had something like that, that would have been a huge help in early days because there wasn't really anything out there. So that was the first step, I guess, in my mind. Took me a long time to actually pull a manuscript together and actually get itself published, but that was kind of the first step. So there wasn't any notion of entrepreneurship, but there was an. There was this drive to share what we knew and all the knowledge.

And then from that, you know, it was. It was a great experience, I mean, for me to write it and to get it out there. But I quickly learned that there are, I don't know, 50, 70,000 titles published every year. So my. Mine got lost and, you know, it's good for 15 seconds and then you're on to something else. So I wanted to find a Way to do more. And that's kind of where soaring families came into being. You know, we, we established our own incorpation of a business, not knowing what that meant or what we really wanted to deliver or service.

But we knew who our clients were and it has grown since then. We started it in 2015, you know, very small pieces along the way, learning a lot of things, getting an online presence and it's just kind of evolved from there.

I love it with what you do because my parents are a caregiver as well for my younger brother. So this episode is very close to my heart. As we talked previously about my family situation and you gave me a bit more about Ben with, with what you're doing. Have you seen a, an outreach from families that may not have to be caregivers for their children, but maybe caregivers for their fam. For older family members like parents. Have they reached out to you about getting help or is this more towards the parents with children that have. I don't want to say disabilities because I despise that word.

Yeah, that's a great question. And in fact that's kind of been our. I guess we're not really sure who should we target. Right. Because we can help. I mean as far as one of the things we focus on is home care and how do you build a care circle around you to sort of support all those needs. And so from that point of view it doesn't really matter if it's your child or your spouse or your, you know, or your parents, your aging parents. And so I guess I would answer the question is that we, while we have most of our experience of 30 plus years, you know, managing your or looking after and caring and supporting your child who's now an adult, we also have experience.

My father lived to the age of 100 and you know, there's lots of. He, you know, fortunately he was.

Of.

Sound mind and he was able to, you know, he was a sharp from the day he. Till the day he took his last breath. But you know, your body's not designed to live 100 years and so there was a lot of other support and special needs that he needed to you know, function in life and have a. And enjoy things. And you know, my mother in law as well is going through some health challenges. So we have sort of it on both ends that we have that experience. It's different in providing the support whether it's your own child versus your parent, but the principles are exactly the same.

I love that. I kind of want to Understand what was when you were building this business and you mentioned that you had parts every couple of years you get add new parts, creating the more robust situ, robust offers that you have. What was one of the more challenging aspects of putting together a company or a business that supports caregivers while also being the primary caregiver for your son? Like that must have been like more place to juggle than I'm, I'm, I wouldn't be able to handle. So hats off to you for, to you and your wife for being able to this and to do that as well as for your, the circle of support you had. What was some of the struggles that you faced doing this duality of the roles?

Well, it was more along the lines of, you know, are we, can we actually build something that people will need and want? You know, do we have enough time to do that? Do we even have the knowledge to do that in, you know, in an effective way? And so there were, I'd say some of the challenges were around, you know, I guess we, we self funded the business. So you know that that has its limitations and the same time as well, what if nobody wants this? What are we really, are we spending a whole lot of time on something that you know, we know the need in general is there, but can we actually deliver something that people want? And, and we still have kind of those questions and, and doubts along the way, but I would say that's probably the biggest part. I've been in technology for, you know, 30 plus years, so that side of the business is easy for me. I don't worry about that part. And even getting, you know, an online presence and getting out in front of people, that's not, that wasn't the hard part. It was really about I guess probably the self doubt and seeing, you know, and also the, I guess the drive to not overwhelm people with that. The knowledge that we have is just, just start something small and, and making sure that you've, you've sort of started in the right place so you can sort of bring them along along the way.

With being in Canada. Because you're, if I'm not mistaken, you're based out of New Brunswick, correct?

That's right.

Okay. Being based in Canada and having Canada being somewhat of a social democracy, we have universal health care, thankfully. Have you seen the government being able to provide help to organizations like yourself or companies like yourself that do help those caregivers? Or have you seen it more that it's stand on your own and good luck to you.

It's more the stand on your own and good luck to you. There's, you know, there's certainly, I guess, you know, they empathize and they, there's an understanding acknowledgment of the need. But it, the whole, if, you know, if you want to speak about Canada, sort of the national recognition of family caregiving, it's got a long way to go. Right. And, you know, depending on who you talk to, you know, I would argue that family caregivers are an extension of the healthcare system. If they didn't provide the care, the whole system would collapse. And of course, you're not going to not provide care to your child. Right.

You can't just say, oh, sorry, I can't do it today. That's up to, you know, the Minister of Health. Sorry, like you're not going to do that.

No.

Right. So it's, it's kind of a. You're in this situation because you, you've. The default is. Is the family. And everybody knows that. And so there's not this impetus to kind of make huge changes in there. Although the tide is shifting, I have to say there are, there are, you know, organizations and agencies that are raising the bar on.

And raising the awareness of people can't continue this way because if you have people, you know, burning the candle at both ends or more, that costs society, that costs the healthcare system in general. And you just need those measures to actually demonstrate to people that, okay, we better do something here. But to answer your question, it's just you basically have to kind of figure it out on your own. There are silos of support if you can find them, but basically you have to kind of pull that all together.

It's a shame. I'm glad that we're seeing that shift, but I think we need to accelerate it a bit more to help families like yourself, Mike, and of course, individuals like Ben to get the support that they deserve. Because we're all citizens, we're all supposed to be equal. So we're supposed to get that level of support to have the life that we're apparently guaranteed under our nice little Charter of Rights and freedoms here in Canada, and obviously the UN Charter of Rights and Freedoms as well, with what you're doing and raising the soaring families and raising those bar. Have you seen an uptick in members of the government reaching out to you to ask for more, how they can support you more? Or have you been having to reach out to them and saying, hey, we need this, we need that, you guys need to do this or Focus over here.

It's more of me reaching out there. And, and don't get me wrong, there are some great people in government and in, in that structure that have helped both us and Ben in his life. But they're not knocking at your door saying, here's all the things we can do to help you. And the same for, from a, you know, the business that we're in. There are, you know, general ways of supporting and either financially or in other ways, but you have to go looking for them. And even despite the, you know, the overall benefits that we can provide to families to help them, empower them and stand on their own, there's not a lot of, not a lot of support coming my way, you know, on that we didn't solicit. Right. So if you do find the people, usually you can get the help and support you need.

But it is a bit of a game to try and find the right people at the right time.

Somewhat like a needle in a haystack situation sometimes.

Kind of. Yeah. Yeah. Because sometimes you don't even know where to start or even what questions to ask. Right.

With all the work that you've been doing and obviously I'm guessing there has been times where both you and your wife or you and your partner have been burning the candle at both ends to take care of Ben, run the business, take care of the family in general.

Yeah.

What have you guys found that works well to give you guys that reprieve as caregivers? Because I know my parents, they always need a weekend off here and there or you know, my brother goes over to my sister's and stays with her for some time or comes stays with me or what has been some of the ways that you have found have been able to recharge your guys batteries either as a couple or individually.

Great question. And really that's kind of the essence of what we do with soaring families is that we recognized early on that you can't do all this yourself, nor should you, and that it's not a solo act. Caregiving is not a solo act. And so building a team around you, even if it's just a team of one or two people to support. And so you can, so they can be your hands and feet to do that. That care of support is what made everything. It was a complete game changer. And I wouldn't be here talking to you unless there was team Ben with Ben right now.

And so that's the, that's the part that, you know, I think as a society we're we're taught not to ask for help. Right. It's very individualistic. And so it's. If you're asking for help, that means you failed in some way, which is not true. It actually, asking for help is a very powerful statement to say, you know what, I want the best care for my family member and I know I can't do it all on my own, but how do we do that? Who else can we bring in to provide that support? That's not a natural thought process that we, we, we have as a society, but that's what we try to instill in families to say, of course you can. It's not a failure. You haven't, you know, you haven't missed something because you can't be there every single minute of the day.

And we show families how to find the right people to support them, whatever the, you know, wherever they need the most help now and then in the future, and how to build that team and make that function as, as a, you know, as a seamless way of support for your family member so that you don't have to be there all the time and that you can, you can get that reprieve and that respite when you need to. Because if you have that in place, what happens with the family caregiver is now they've, they can step back and they can see the bigger picture of what sort of what care is, is required. Where do you think we're going in this? What do you think five years from now is going to look like? What's one year going to look like for. And start to think about it in those terms. You have that space now to think of it and the energy to think about that, and then you start to see the picture completely differently. It's not this. You have to be on call 24 hours a day.

Yeah. Your life is this tree. And sometimes you need that step back to see the forest and not just the tree. With being a family caregiver, I'm very interested because you said you built a team, you have to build a team around you. And when you're starting a business, you need a team for your business. Right. You again. It's nearly identical.

I don't want to say it's exactly identical because being a caregiver has a lot more, probably complications, more emotions involved in it, but starting a business as well has complications. Probably not life or death as a caregiver, but have you seen a lot of similarities from when you were building your team of Team Ben pretty much to building Team Soaring Families. Was there some, some tips, some tricks or some things that you learned while building Team Ben that you were able to implement into Team Soaring Families?

Well, I think the biggest thing that we've lesson that we've learned is that, you know, we can't do everything all the time ourselves. And so you go to, you know, you go to the experts that have a specialty in this, in this particular, this particular area for your business. If you want to, you know, have an online presence or you need to, you know, come up with your brand, you can't. You can sit in the corner and kind of sketch it out and do it, and you can take some, you know, online training and things, but you want to bring in someone who's done it and you want to bring in someone who's helped you do that. So. And the same with, you know, setting up your business from a, you know, for an accounting point of view and a tax point of view, you go to those experts, you have that team around you to fulfill those specialties in the same way that you will as a family caregiver. We have people who have nursing experience, people who have just general personal care experience. You don't have to be all things to all people.

And so knowing how to find the right people and place them in your business at the right time is what kind of makes it work. And that way it takes the pressure off of you. You become sort of the coordinator of that and knowing when to call people in when it's required, and it just. Then you can focus on what's core for you.

I love that. I would love if you could share a story about maybe one of the families. We can keep it anonymous because I want to protect everyone's person, personal safety and all that. But is there maybe a story of a family that came in, they were probably on, you know, like at the wit's end, maybe that they were trying to build this caregiving family and that you can maybe tell us about how them coming to Soaring Families was able to maybe alleviate some of the stress of being a caregiver for their child or family member.

Sure. So one person that comes to mind, she was part of our group coaching program and she had, I guess she had tried to, you know, hire people to come in for certain periods of time through the day, but didn't really have a good experience. And her, her family member, which was her son, he had a lot of placed a lot of demands on her from a, you know, from a behavioral point of view and just things that makes him happy. Um, and it was trying to balance that with trying to find your way through to, to find the right people, it was just falling all back on her shoulders. And so when we showed her the formula that we use to actually find the right people to evaluate whether they're going to be a fit into their home, and then how do you, you know, build that team and help the team bring their best every day, it was. She. I could see that, you know, kind of her self confidence grew that she didn't have to try to figure this out all on her own, and that she had, you know, a place to go at soaring families if she stumbled along the way. So she's actually, in the last year, year and a half, she's grown her team to three people and now she's, you know, there's still lots of challenges with, with home life and everything, but all that stuff she was doing herself has now been sort of relieved of her.

And to see that kind of development and, you know, there's still highs and lows like every, every family, but that was, I guess that's what gets me out of bed every morning to see that development and that, that, you know, success in her life, right. That she, she found the way through and she feels good about herself and now she can sort of take the next step.

I love that. And that's a huge, like, I can understand how that can help you get up in the day. Seeing someone go from struggling under the weight of caring for their son to being like, okay, now I'm not just like paddling along, trying to, you know, stay, keep my head above water. I'm now like, okay, I'm, I'm relaxed. I got a piece of wood that I can use right now to build that raft so that I can sail home, you know, and have a nice, calmer seas. With that said, what do you do to invest in yourself? Because as a caregiver, you need to recharge those batteries, keep yourself going, making sure, obviously, like, you know, in doing technology, you have to invest in your skills to become more better and better over time. What do you do to invest in yourself so that you're not only a better caregiver for Ben, but you're also a better partner in the business, but also to your. Your partner.

So there's not a simple answer to.

That, but it never is.

No, I think the biggest thing for me is making sure that I get enough rest. For years I just went until I dropped and then got up again and tried to keep going because there was so much to do. There was so much responsibility, and I'm sure that trying to carry the weight of the world on my shoulders is what led me to, you know, a cancer diagnosis. And so fortunately, you know, and by the grace of God, it's 17 years have passed since that horrible discovery. And things are good, but I do you know that your body keeps score about everything, whether you want it to or not. And so the biggest thing for me, among others, but the biggest thing is making sure. And I don't do it every day, but making sure I get enough sleep. And so I.

I invested in a Fitbit about four years ago. And, you know, it's. It's pretty close to what your sleep patterns are like, but it gives you a way to track that, and it also gives you more, you know, data around. Well, what was your resting heart rate and how were you feeling? Right? This just gives you that. Those guideposts to say, you're getting off track here, Mike. You better bring it back. And so when you get enough sleep and when you actually feel that energy restored, you can do just about anything, right? But you can't do anything 24 hours a day. So you have to have that balance.

I love that and I love how. Because sometimes we. It's hard for us to. Sometimes it's hard for us to hear our body because we're so focused on a task. And having a Fitbit just lets you know, hey, oh, oh, wait, no, there's the body's calling my. Calling me. I need to listen.

Exactly.

Yeah, I love that. Where do you see soaring families in the next, let's say, decade? Where would you like to see soaring families? Obviously, we want Ben to be taken care of, doing wonderful. We're going to say that he's perfect. Like, it's not perfect, but it's much better than where it is today. Where would you like to see actually soaring family, your business go from now, in 10 years?

So I guess our vision is. And it's somewhat arbitrary, but we want to be able to have supported and reached a million families, no matter where they are, and really to help them see that the situation they're in as being a family caregiver is actually a tremendous gift. And when you're in the throes of the stress and the hospital visits and the emergencies, that's the furthest thing from your mind. But when you get beyond those, because those tend to be temporary, although we let them overwhelm us, what we want to do is see that it really is. You're in a. You're in a very. You can be in an envious situation. The fact that you're a family caregiver and help the family see that gift.

So that's our. That's where I want to be in 10 years. If we're talking in 10 years, I can say here's the list of a million families that we've served.

I have no doubt that you'll have that list before 10 years because of what you guys are doing. And it's so important and there's so many families that do need this help because you know, we have an aging population coming out. We have those, the boomers coming. So we need that. The tools and companies like yourself helping families soar above the trees so that they can deal with the mess that is sometimes caregiving because it's not all sunshine and rainbows and lollipops.

It is messy. That's true.

We are coming to an end, which I despise because Mike, I want to keep promoting you. I love what you're doing. You're a fellow Canadian, which again, close to my heart. Got to help the Canadians out. Again, is close to my heart with caregiving for a family member. I bet your other children are part of team Ben and love Ben just as much as mom and dad do. But I would love to know if you could look back at your 10 year old self, what is a piece of advice you would love to be able to hand back that could help out your 10 year old self?

I would say that be open to what comes, what comes your way and not try to force things. We kind of, you know, as we're growing up we get these, I guess programs in our head of this is the way life should be. And you know, that's what we thought too. You know, in, in the early 90s we thought we had done all the right things and then suddenly Ben comes along and so at the time it's horrible. And you think what did I. You know, there's guilt and shame and if I only done this and how did I miss that? Forget all of that. It's just be open to what comes and receptive. Um, and you'll be surprised where, where life will take you.

Great. I love that. That's perfect advice for anybody 10 years old to 90 years old. Be open to what comes. Maybe 90 year old is a. Is a little much. There's about a decade left, but still you gotta be open throughout your life for what comes your way. Ben, I'm gonna.

Mike, I'm Gonna jump off stage here. I want you to let my audience know where they can connect with you, what you have for them to help them become better for their family members that are in need or maybe they know someone that could use some support from the Soaring Families company. So I'm going to jump off stage. The floor is yours, sir.

Okay, thank you. So you can reach me anytime@mikerwingfamilies.com and as I said earlier in the podcast, we focus on helping you create amazing home care experience. And there's a couple of ways we can do that. One is we have a program where you can go through in a, in a kind of a self paced study of finding the right person, building the team around you. It's, it's what we've gone through as I mentioned in that group coaching program. But you can do it all yourself. And if you sign up for that, it's at our website on soaringfamilies.com we can be there to support you as you go through and have any questions. And the second thing is if you just want, if you don't want to go to that to that extent, one of the key things that we found is getting our life organized.

And the way you do that is through a product, a guide that we call the Pink Book. And it can really be your companion for, you know, writing all the important information down about what do you do in an emergency, what medications do you have to do, what care routines are required. We've done all the heavy lifting for that and we, it's basically our Pink book that we've developed over the last 30 years that we've put it into an easy to use downloadable format that you can start building that, that, that family caregiving, those, those processes and really start to get into a more organized and a much calmer way of doing that. So I hope you reach out and if you have any questions, As I say, mikerwingfamilies.com we're here to help anytime. Hope to talk to you soon.

Mike, I want to thank you so much for being here. Your story is inspirational. What you're doing with Ben and for families around the world is incredible. I'm so glad that I was able to connect with you and have this conversation and I'm definitely going to be staying in touch because I like what you guys are doing.

Yeah, definitely. Thank you so much for the opportunity, Phil. I hope it's kind of worked out the way you thought for today. So yeah, most of the time I do a little bit of prep work, but most of the time it just kind of whatever the flow is seems to make me feel good. So I hope it was good for your show too.

It was perfect for my show. I can't thank you enough to my audience. Make sure you check out the show notes down below to connect with Mike Soaring Families and get that pink book if you are in need or the course as well. Remember to always invest in yourself. And it's all about family, so make sure you stay with yours.

Thanks for joining us on Invest in Yourself, the digital entrepreneur podcast. The podcast mogul reminds you that your journey to freedom and success starts with one powerful move investing in yourself. If today's episode sparked your fire, hit that follow button on Spotify and drop us a comment. Share your wins, your challenges, and what drives you to break free from the corporate grind. Remember, you're your best investment. Always invest in yourself because your potential is limitless. Until next time, keep hustling and take control of your destiny.