Becoming Stress-Proof: Jeff Salter of Caring Senior Service On How To Reduce Or Eliminate Stress When Caring For Elderly or Aging Parents
An Interview With Savio Clemente
Establish a Routine but Remain Flexible
Creating a daily routine helps manage time and expectations for both you and your elderly parents. It brings a sense of predictability and comfort. However, it’s crucial to stay flexible. Unforeseen appointments or health issues may arise, and being adaptable reduces stress for both parties.
With all that’s going on in our country, our economy, the world, and on social media, it feels like so many of us are under a great deal of stress. Caring for elderly or aging parents can be particularly stress-inducing. We know chronic stress can be as unhealthy as smoking a quarter of a pack a day. What are stress management strategies that people use to become “Stress-Proof? What are some great tweaks, hacks, and tips that help reduce or even eliminate stress when caring for our aging parents? In this interview series, we are talking to authors, and mental health experts, who can share their strategies for reducing or eliminating stress. As a part of this series, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Jeff Salter.
Caring Senior Service founder & CEO Jeff Salter began his career in senior care in 1991 working for a home health care agency in Odessa, Texas. Four months later, he started his own senior care service to provide seniors with the non-medical care they need to stay at home. In 2003, Caring Senior Service began offering franchises and today has locations in more than 50 markets nationwide. For more information on Caring Senior Service, please visit https://www.caringseniorservice.com/.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to know how you got from “there to here.” Inspire us with your backstory!
Jeff Salter , Founder and CEO, Caring Senior Service
As a 20-year-old kid working at a senior care company in Odessa, Texas, I was on the front lines in receiving calls from adult children of aging parents who were dealing with the challenges this presented. Many lived in one area and had parents who lived in another city, and they needed in-home care.
At the time, all we could do is just give them a list of caregivers in the area who could do the work. But that meant that the adult children would have to interview them, screen them and manage their time. I realized there was a role I could play in this process by doing all the interviewing, screening and time management.
Inspired by the problem I saw, I decided to create Caring Senior Service in Odessa. That quickly spread to Midland and Corpus Christie, Texas. Finally, when I opened my fifth location in San Antonio, Texas, I realized there was an opportunity to spread this service across the country. That was when I chose to become a franchisor and teach other entrepreneurs how to operate a home care business.
We now have 51 locations in 19 states today.
What lessons would you share with yourself if you had the opportunity to meet your younger self?
I think I would have told myself to join an association or group to learn the ins and outs of the franchise system much earlier. Once I decided to become a franchisor, I spent 11 years on my own developing that system for Caring Senior Service.
My experience might have been much easier had I opted to learn from others who had started franchises before I did.
None of us are able to experience success without support along the way. Is there a particular person for whom you are grateful because of the support they gave you to grow you from “there to here?” Can you share that story and why you are grateful for them?
After I had been in business for 16 years, I joined a group called The Alternative Board(TAB), which is a community of forward-thinking CEOs and business owners who provide business coaching and other strategic tools and workshops to other entrepreneurs.
It was through TAB that I met its president, John Dini, a consultant and coach. I may have come to this group late, but John’s guidance has helped me tremendously in growing my business and helping me achieve my desired goals.
TAB also provides a peer network that allows business owners to share ideas that help other entrepreneurs improve their businesses and change their lives.
Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think it might help people?
I’m focused heavily on Artificial Intelligence and how it can be used to make Caring Senior Service more efficient. I’m also looking into ways AI can improve the quality of care we provide. For example, we are looking at how AI can look beyond a caregiver’s time availability and education level and more toward the types of care they excel at and their personality types so that we can make better caregiver to client matches.
This can also be used to create a platform to match the right caregiver to the right client faster so that both the caregiver and the client are more comfortable with one another.
Ok, thank you for sharing your inspired life. Let’s now talk about stress. How would you define stress?
Stress, simply put, is the way we feel when we are taken out of our comfort zone. For most of us, we do quite well when we work within our comfort zone, but when we’re taken out of those roles, we experience stress.
In the Western world, humans typically have their shelter, food, and survival needs met. So what has led to this chronic stress? Why are so many of us always stressed out?
Stress today is caused largely by social media and our connected world. People have a hard time compartmentalizing themselves from what they’re reading online, and they project themselves further out than they need to. They are involved in issues they didn’t create and can’t solve.
We’re also living in a world where companies are trying to become leaner. That means that our individual roles are often expanded to include aspects of our jobs that we aren’t as familiar with and with issues we have to solve that are new to us. This takes us out of our comfort zones and creates more stress.
What are some of the physical manifestations of being under a lot of stress? How does the human body react to stress?
The human body knows that something is wrong and will start to warn us with smaller issues, like headaches, bad dreams, digestive issues and trouble sleeping. But, if those things are ignored, the body then reacts by manifesting more serious complications, such as high blood pressure and a pounding heart rate.
Is stress necessarily a bad thing? Can stress ever be good for us?
Personally, I thrive under stress, but not everyone does. I was a high school and college athlete, so, as a competitor, I was under stress to achieve things in practice so that I was ready for the next track meet.
But, because I thrive on stress, I realize that can be challenging for the people who work with me, so I have to be mindful that I don’t create more stress for those around me.
Let’s now focus more on the stress of caring for elderly or aging parents. This feels intuitive, but it is helpful to spell it out in order to address it. Can you help articulate a few reasons why caring for our aging parents can be so stressful?
No one goes through a course that teaches us how to care for our aging parents until we are faced with that issue. That puts most of us outside of our level of comfort. We’re not only worried about our parents’ health, but we must also think about their happiness.
We also have to consider how traditional roles flip when an adult child has to begin caring for an aging parent. For most of our lives, our parents have been our primary caregivers, even as we became adults. Having the roles reversed is a stressful transition that can cause resentment, as well as stress.
The adult children of aging parents must also come to grips with the fact that, as our parents age, they will show a decline in their hearing, memory or ability to care for themselves. This brings about stress because we suddenly realize our parents won’t be a perpetual part of our lives.
Can you share with our readers your “5 Things You Can Do to Reduce Stress When Caring For Your Elderly Or Aging Parents”?
Establish a Routine but Remain Flexible
Creating a daily routine helps manage time and expectations for both you and your elderly parents. It brings a sense of predictability and comfort. However, it’s crucial to stay flexible. Unforeseen appointments or health issues may arise, and being adaptable reduces stress for both parties.
Example: In our early days of caregiving, my team and I noticed that our most successful days were those with a clear plan. Yet, there was a time when an unexpected hospital visit disrupted our schedule. Instead of panicking, we adjusted our plans, which taught us the importance of flexibility. This balance keeps stress levels in check and ensures we’re prepared for anything.
Leverage Technology for Support
Technology can be a great ally in caregiving. From medical alert systems to video call apps, these tools can make caring for aging parents easier and provide peace of mind.
Example: Our caregivers frequently become tech support. They’re often called upon to help their clients with apps like FaceTime. It’s incredible to see that we not only help physically by being in the home, but to help connect with a family in this way brings us a lot of joy.
Seek Professional Help and Respite Care
It’s important to recognize when you need outside help. Professional caregivers or respite care services can provide expert care and give you a much-needed break.
Example: I recall a family struggling to balance work and caregiving. After consulting, they decided to hire a professional caregiver for a few hours a week. This decision allowed them to focus on work and personal time, reducing stress and improving their relationship with their elderly parent.
Engage in Self-Care and Set Boundaries
Caregiving is demanding. Engaging in self-care and setting personal boundaries are vital in avoiding burnout. Whether it’s pursuing a hobby, exercising, or simply reading a book, taking time for yourself is crucial.
Example: A caregiver shared with me how using our dementia training program, she was able to better understand what was happening with her client, and this allowed her to separate the relationship between the client’s good days and bad days.
Build a Support Network
Having a support network of friends, family, or caregiver support groups can provide emotional support and practical advice. Sharing experiences and solutions with others in similar situations can be incredibly relieving.
Example: As my mother aged, it became important that I build my own network of support. Here I was the founder and CEO of a homecare business, helping thousands of others over my 30 years, and I was dealing with the problems I had helped others face. The network we build is invaluable for sharing caregiving duties, offering emotional support, and exchanging tips. It reminds us we aren’t alone in our journey.
These strategies have been instrumental in my personal and professional experiences in caregiving. They don’t eliminate stress completely, but they can significantly reduce its impact, making the caregiving journey more manageable and fulfilling for both caregivers and their elderly loved ones.
Do you have any favorite books, podcasts, or resources that have inspired you to live with more joy in life?
I have long enjoyed “The Count of Monte Crisco” by Alexandre Dumas. It may be an epic story about revenge and redemption, but it also serves as an uplifting tale of how to face adversity to grow stronger in our lives.
I also recommend Chris Voss’s “Never Split the Difference.” Voss is a former international hostage negotiator for the FBI. In this book, he not only recounts the world of high-stakes negotiation but also reveals how life is a series of negotiations we must master and be prepared for.
You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?
After working in the senior care industry for more than 30 years, I saw the challenges seniors who choose to age in place face on a daily basis and knew we needed to close the gap in meeting the needs of America’s seniors. So, in 2021, I toured the country on an electric bike, visiting 39 Caring Senior Service locations biking across 30 states to draw attention to the installation of grab bars in seniors’ homes. Within a few months, Caring had raised more than $170,000 to go toward that initiative, and the bike ride birthed a movement called, “Close the Gap in Senior Care.”
We have since established this movement as a non-profit organization dedicated to raising awareness of the underserved aspects of senior care. In addition to the installation of grab bars, we also hope to address the problems associated with caregiver shortages and the lack of senior care entrepreneurs and to shine a light on the need for technology integration to improve the lives of seniors.
What is the best way for our readers to continue to follow your work online?
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CaringFranchise
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/caring-senior-service/
Jeff’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeff-salter-10871a7/
X: @CaringSrService
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for the time you spent on this. We wish you only continued success.
About The Interviewer: Savio P. Clemente, TEDx speaker and Stage 3 cancer survivor, infuses transformative insights into every article. His journey battling cancer fuels a mission to empower survivors and industry leaders towards living a truly healthy, wealthy, and wise lifestyle. As a Board-Certified Wellness Coach (NBC-HWC, ACC), Savio guides readers to embrace self-discovery and rewrite narratives by loving their inner stranger, as outlined in his acclaimed TEDx talk: “7 Minutes to Wellness: How to Love Your Inner Stranger.” From his best-selling book to his impactful work as a media journalist covering resilience and wellness trends with notable celebrities and TV personalities, Savio’s words touch countless lives. His philosophy, “to know thyself is to heal thyself,” resonates in every piece.
