The Club Sandwich Generation Is at Work Right Now — Is Your Culture Ready? Featuring Nicole Townsend

She Stepped Away From Her Career to Become the CEO of Her Mother's Care - With Annatova Neches

THE TRIPLE SHIFT | Episode 7 What does it look like to leave a corporate career at Adidas and become the full-time CEO of your mother's care — managing a family trust, a caregiver team, rental properties, a doctoral dissertation in Jungian psychology, and a music career — while insisting on keeping your identity intact? For Annatova Neches, it looks like a system. In this episode of The Triple Shift, Annatova walks through what her triple shift — work, life, and care — looks like in practice: how she structured her role as a paid care manager employed by her mother's trust, why physical distance made her a better caregiver, what Jungian psychology taught her about showing up with dignity, and why she now defines success as a quiet afternoon with no emergency texts. ─────────────────────────TIMESTAMPS─────────────────────────00:00 Welcome and Guest Intro00:55 Her Triple Shift Setup03:24 Systems and Boundaries08:03 Keeping Life and Identity09:15 Jungian Lens on Care11:28 Trusting Intuition15:37 Getting Paid via Trust21:15 Leadership and Success Redefined29:46 Future Leadership Vision33:52 What Workplaces Should Do41:01 Album and Creative Therapy43:40 Connect and Closing44:22 Hosts Reflect and Wrap ─────────────────────────WHAT YOU'LL LEARN───────────────────────── * How a family trust can legally employ a family caregiver — and what that model looks like * What it means to be the CEO of a caregiving operation * Why distance from a care recipient can be an act of love, not abandonment * How Jungian psychology deepened her empathy for her mother and herself * How she released an album and finished a dissertation while caregiving full time * What workplaces get wrong — and why acknowledgment is the baseline, not a perk * Why success now looks like a quiet afternoon with no emergency texts ─────────────────────────ABOUT ANNATOVA NECHES─────────────────────────Artist, musician & PhD candidate in Jungian psychology. Former creative services project manager at Adidas. Full-time care manager for her mother Terry (Alzheimer's) since January 2022, employed by the family trust as co-trustee and fiduciary. Website: annatova-neches.squarespace.comInstagram: @annatovanechesFacebook: facebook.com/annatovaLinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/annatova-nechesPantheon (latest album): open.spotify.com/album/4rrqz8AdQx1jmL3rbGDQqI ─────────────────────────FOR HR LEADERS───────────────────────── * Acknowledge it first. Caregiving is still invisible in most workplaces — and that silence is a retention risk. * Caregiving seasons are long. Employees need sustained support, not just a week of compassionate leave. * Read career gaps as leadership development — not absence. Project management, crisis response, team coordination: these skills are directly transferable. * Don't conflate care manager with home health aide. The scope is vastly underestimated. * Performance continuity is the business case. An unacknowledged caregiving load puts performance, retention, and engagement at risk. ─────────────────────────YOUR HOSTS─────────────────────────Lauren Yankoff — Founder, The Empowered Exec. Creator of Lead.Live.Care. for working caregivers. Lauren@theempoweredexec.comtheempoweredexec.com Denise Brown — Founder, Caring Our Way. Nationally recognized caregiving expert and author. Denise@caringourway.comcaringourway.com

The Club Sandwich Generation Is at Work Right Now — Is Your Culture Ready? Featuring Nicole Townsend

Work Live Care EP. 6What does it actually look like to run a business, care for a 75-year-old mother living with Parkinson's, check in on a 95-year-old grandmother, raise two young adult children — and do all of it while navigating your own breast cancer diagnosis and recovery?Nicole Townsend calls it the club sandwich generation. And she doesn't say it with a shrug — she says it with clarity, strategy, and an unflinching insistence that this is a workforce issue, not a personal one.In this episode of The Triple Shift, Nicole joins Lauren and Denise to share what her triple shift — how she works, how she lives, and how she cares — looks like day to day. She unpacks a December crisis that reshaped her understanding of what sustainability actually requires, and makes the case that workplaces measuring success by quantity are actively failing their best people.What You'll Learn in This EpisodeWhat the 'club sandwich generation' is — and why it's a more accurate frame than sandwich generation for women 45–55How Nicole navigated a December crisis when her mother fell and broke her hip — and what the decision to move her to assisted living really requiredWhy unsolicited judgment from outsiders is one of the most underacknowledged burdens of caregivingHow a breast cancer diagnosis in 2024 fundamentally reframed Nicole's definition of leadership and successWhat true flexibility at work actually means — and why saying the words without changing the deadlines doesn't countWhy quantity-as-success-metric is one of the most damaging defaults in workplace cultureHow Nicole redesigned her business model around one clear lane — and what that teaches us about sustainable caregiving and careerWhat it sounds like when a leader truly sees the whole person — and why that builds the kind of trust that retains talentHow caregiving needs to be elevated as a workforce and economic development issue — not a personal oneEpisode Timestamps00:00 Welcome to Triple Shift01:35 Meet Nicole Townsend03:02 Her Daily Triple Shift06:44 Mom’s Fall and Crisis10:38 Assisted Living Decision15:14 Redefining Leadership and Success17:46 Shifting Her Business Model21:15 What Workplaces Must Change27:33 Empathy in Action30:02 Finding Personal Sustainability33:14 Hosts Reflect and Wrap Up41:10 Final Outro and Next StepsAbout Nicole TownsendFounder of Experience Counts, a consultancy helping organizations build intentional, people-centered culturesAuthor of Just Be Real — a field guide for managers to make work count for employees and companiesCultural advisor, community leader, and neurodiversity advocate, inspired by family members on the autism spectrum and living with Parkinson'sPrimary caregiver for her mother (75, Parkinson's) and involved in the care of her grandmother (95)Breast cancer survivor — diagnosed 2024, double mastectomy December 2024, radiation 2025, final surgery October 2025President-elect (becoming President July 2026) of the National Association for Women Business Owners (NAWBO), SacramentoResources & Guest Links:GUESTnicole@experiencecounts.usExperience Counts - www.experiencecounts.us [https://experiencecounts.us/]Just Be Real by Nicole Townsend — sold at Amazon [https://a.co/d/0bjxn8GA]National Association for Women Business Owners (NAWBO) — nawbo.org [https://nawbo.org/]Connect with Us:HOSTSThe Empowered Exec — Lauren Yankoffwww.theempoweredexec.com [https://www.theempoweredexec.com/] lauren@thempoweredexec.comCaring Our Way — Denise Brownwww.caringourway.com [https://join.caringourway.com/] denise@caringourway.comThe club sandwich generation is at work right now.Share this episode with one person who needs to hear it — a working caregiver, a people leader, or an entrepreneur trying to make it all sustainable.Subscribe to The Triple Shift wherever you listen to podcasts.

You Don't Get It Until You Live It: Dementia Caregiving, Boundaries, and Workplace Support with Lori Zoss

Work Live Care EP. 5  You Don't Get It Until You Live It: Dementia Caregiving, Boundaries, and Workplace Support with Lori Zoss Episode Overview What happens when the hardest part of caregiving isn't the diagnosis — it's everything else around it? In this episode, Denise and Lauren sit down with Lori Zoss, entrepreneur and founder of Growth Owl, for an honest, grounded conversation about caring for her mother who has mixed dementia — while running her own business, setting harder boundaries than she ever has, and finding her way back to joy. Lori shares what it felt like to watch her mother's diagnosis unfold during a routine knee surgery, why she believes corporate America is failing caregiving employees, and how this season of life has fundamentally changed the way she leads, sells, and protects her energy. This one is for every professional who has ever thought: I don't know how people do this when they work for someone else. In This Episode 00:00 Meet Lori Growth Owl 00:15 AI Networking Connection 01:47 Defining Triple Shift 02:12 Dementia Diagnosis Journey 04:01 Daily Caregiving Reality 05:48 Work Versus Caregiving 13:55 Systems And Fatigues 15:31 Setting Firm Boundaries 19:11 Finding Joy On Purpose 22:07 Redefining Work Success 25:56 Creating Margin to Avoid Burnout 26:27 Choosing Aligned Clients 27:48 Triple Shift Hits Workplaces 30:44 Building Corporate Caregiving Programs 33:07 Embedded Caregiving Consultant Model 34:11 Culture Matters in Support 36:37 Talking Dementia and Planning Ahead 40:22 Family Emergency Planning at Work 43:18 Books and Where to Find Them 46:07 Workplace Support Beyond Joy and Death 50:31 Grief, Bereavement, and Retention 53:22 Episode Wrap and Takeaways Key Concepts From This Episode Grace Fatigue — The quiet depletion that comes from being repeatedly gracious to well-meaning people whose advice makes caregiving harder, not easier. System Fatigue — The exhaustion of simultaneously managing multiple caregiving systems, each with its own paperwork, processes, and demands. The 19 Caregiving Systems — Denise's proprietary framework identifying the distinct operational systems a caregiver manages — often all at once. Family Emergency Planning — A proactive workplace program that normalizes caregiving conversations by anchoring them in something everyone understands: planning ahead for the unexpected. The CARE Method™ — Lauren's four-stage operating framework (Clarify, Align, Reallocate, Elevate) for leaders navigating the collision of career and caregiving. Quotes From This Episode "It's not the dementia that's consuming. It's managing everything else around it." — Lori Zoss "It is not my responsibility to provide access to my mother to make somebody else feel better." — Lori Zoss "This is a season of life. Not the whole life." — Lori Zoss "Caregiving is one of those things we all seem to be a part of at some point — yet the workplace has almost no formal structure for it." — Lori Zoss Resources & Guest Links 🦉 Growth Owl — Lori's corporate sponsorship and revenue strategy advisory: thegrowthlowl.com [http://thegrowthowl.com] 📚 Under Caution — Lori's romance suspense novel featuring a female race car driver: available on Amazon [https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FCD6GPCQ] and BarnesandNoble.com 📚 The Boardroom Playbook — Lori's guide to corporate sponsorship for nonprofits and purpose-driven organizations: available on Amazon [https://www.amazon.com/Boardroom-Playbook-Ordinary-Corporate-Organization/dp/B0BHS9F1Q6/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0] ✍️ Lori's author site: lorizossbooks.com [http://lorizossbooks.com] Lori Zoss📧 Lori@thegrowthowl.com Connect With Us 💼 Lauren Yanoff on LinkedIn 📧 lauren@theempoweredexec.com [lauren@theempoweredexec.com]                                            🌐theempoweredexec.com 💼 Denise Brown on LinkedIn 📧 denise@caringourway.com If this episode resonated, share it with someone who is carrying a lot right now and could use the language to talk about it. Subscribe, leave a review, and tell us what you want to hear next — it genuinely shapes this show. The Triple Shift: For people leading at work, caring at home, and trying to keep a life through all of it.

Designing a Life - Calvina Nyugen on Duty, Joy and Identity

What happens when you’re the only child, a business owner, a mother — and both of your parents have Parkinson’s? In this episode of Work • Live • Care: The Triple Shift, Denise Brown and Lauren Yankoff talk with brand strategist Calvina Nyugen about leading through one of life’s most complex seasons. When COVID began, Calvina’s caregiving intensified overnight. She now manages daily meals, transportation, translation, medical paperwork, and the invisible mental load of being a “dutiful daughter” shaped by cultural expectation and love. This conversation goes beyond resilience. We talk about: • Protecting capacity without abandoning ambition • Designing a 4-day workweek that actually works • Using systems (and AI) to prevent burnout • The guilt and gratitude that coexist in caregiving • Why caregiving isn’t a personal problem — it’s a policy gap Caregiving is not a detour from leadership. It is a leadership season. If you’re navigating the intersection of work, life, and care — or supporting someone who is — this episode will help you see that aligned design, not sacrifice, is the way forward. Follow The Triple Shift and share with someone carrying their own invisible load. In This Episode: 00:00 – Welcome to The Triple Shift (Work • Live • Care) 01:40 – Meet Calvina: Founder, Mother, Only Child, Caregiver 04:15 – When the Pandemic Changed Everything 05:54 – Translation, Fear & the Immigrant Daughter Experience 08:31 – Culture, Duty & the Weight of Gratitude 11:59 – Spark Joy While Tapped Out? What That Really Means 16:59 – Boundaries as Design: Protecting Weekends 21:45 – Making a 4-Day Workweek Work 24:16 – Using AI as Strategic Support (Calendar & Capacity Audits) 25:19 – The Math of Capacity: Scaling Without Burning Out 27:00 – Reframing the “Brand” of Caregiving 33:58 – The Policy Gap: What Caregivers Actually Need 36:42 – Real Resources, Real Waitlists 41:02 – Why We Seek Help Only When We’re Already in Pain 44:33 – Designing a Life Without Disappearing 45:52 – Closing Reflections & What’s Next About our guest: Calvina Nyugen is a brand strategist and designer with 20 years of design experience who helps creators, coaches, and consultants bridge the gap between their expertise and online presence. She delivers brand strategy, brand design, and websites that help entrepreneurs look as professional as their expertise and attract ideal clients online. She can be reached at: Calvina@yourbrandspark www.yourbrandspark.com [www.yourbrandspark.com] 🌟 Meet the Hosts Lauren Yankoff Executive Coach| Speaker & Podcast Host | Leadership & Caregiving Strategist Lauren helps leaders at the intersection of work, life, and caregiving find peace of mind and clarity in seasons of change. Through her CARE Method™ and deep experience as both a corporate executive and family caregiver, she helps people and organizations redefine success through alignment, not over-functioning. She brings the same grounded, real-world perspective to the mic that she brings to her coaching — honest, practical, and rooted in care. 🔗 www.theempoweredexec.com [www.theempoweredexec.com] Denise M. Brown Founder & CEO, The Caregiving Years Training Academy For more than 30 years, Denise has helped individuals and workplaces navigate caregiving and difficult life experiences with compassion, structure, and hope. A true pioneer in the caregiving field, she launched one of the first online caregiving communities in 1996 and continues that mission through CaringOurWay.com. Her work has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USA Today, and more. Denise’s mission is to help people find possibilities and peace in the midst of care. 🔗 www.careyearsacademy.com 🔗 join.caringourway.com [http://join.caringourway.com]

The Power of Acceptance: Long-distance Caregiving as an Only Child

Welcome to the third episode of Work Live Care, the Triple Shift, with Denise Brown and Lauren Yankoff, where we delve into the unique challenges faced by working caregivers. In this episode, they host Michelle Uebel, an executive and caregiver managing responsibilities across two states. Michelle shares her journey of balancing a demanding career in the pharmaceutical industry with caring for her mother. She offers valuable insights into setting boundaries, seeking support, and the importance of self-care. Tune in for a deep dive into the realities of the triple shift and how workplaces can better support those juggling work, life, and caregiving. 00:00 Introduction to the Triple Shift 01:37 Meet Our Guest: Michelle Uebel 02:18 Michelle's Triple Shift Experience 02:56 Balancing Work, Life, and Caregiving 05:14 Seeking Support and Setting Boundaries 11:32 Managing Care Across Distances 16:54 Shifts in Perspective on Work and Leadership 21:15 Balancing Risk and Independence in Caregiving 22:19 Managing Work and Caregiving Responsibilities 23:00 Setting Boundaries and Practicing Self-Care 25:36 Creating a Supportive Workplace Culture 31:56 Trust and Acceptance in the Triple Shift 33:59 Final Thoughts and Encouragement About our guest: Michelle Uebel is a Global Key Account manager (sales) with 25 years of experience, domestic and international, in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry. Michelle is from Chicago and now splits her time between Chicago and Scottsdale. She loves her dogs, the Chicago Cubs, hiking, traveling, reading and recently is working to improve her Mahjong skills. Michelle may be reached at: michelleuebel@yahoo.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/michelleuebel/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/michelleuebel/] 🌟 Meet the Hosts Lauren Yankoff Certified Caregiving Consultant| Speaker | Former Fortune 500 Leader Lauren helps leaders at the intersection of work, life, and caregiving find peace of mind and clarity in seasons of change. Through her CARE Method™ and deep experience as both a corporate executive and caregiver, she helps people and organizations redefine success through alignment, not exhaustion. She brings the same grounded, real-world perspective to the mic that she brings to her coaching — honest, practical, and rooted in care. 🔗 www.theempoweredexec.com Denise M. Brown Founder & CEO, The Caregiving Years Training Academy For more than 30 years, Denise has helped individuals and workplaces navigate caregiving and difficult life experiences with compassion, structure, and hope. A true pioneer in the caregiving field, she launched one of the first online caregiving communities in 1996 and continues that mission through CaringOurWay.com. Her work has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USA Today, and more. Denise’s mission is to help people find possibilities and peace in the midst of care. 🔗 www.careyearsacademy.com 🔗 join.caringourway.com