Helping Seniors Transition from their Homes, Jami Shapiro, Ep. 16

Jami Shapiro helps seniors transition from homes with her company Silver Linings Transitions. Learn why she is so passionate about this work and how she can help you or your loved ones. Contact Silver Linings Transitions Note: A Life and Death Conversation is produced for the ear. The optimal experience will come from listening to it. We provide the transcript as a way to easily navigate to a particular section and for those who would like to follow along using the text. We strongly encourage you to listen to the audio which allows you to hear the full emotional impact of the show. A combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers generates transcripts which may contain errors. The corresponding audio should be checked before quoting in print. Transcript Jami Shapiro: Thanks for having me. Dr. Bob: Yeah. It's great to have you here. Jami Shapiro: This is exciting. I was really looking forward to this conversation, so I'm glad to be here. Dr. Bob: Yeah. Why is that? Jami Shapiro: Well, death and what you do, it has just really become ... I guess I should describe what it is that I do so that it can set the stage for people. Dr. Bob: Sounds good. Jami Shapiro: Okay. I own a company, as you mentioned, called Silver Linings Transitions and we started as a senior move management company, which is actually part of a National Association called The National Association of Senior Move Management, and I have to step it back a little bit because about 13 years ago, I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, and I was 34 years old, and it was life-changing for me to have to wait on the diagnosis and at the same time, one of my closest friends died of ovarian cancer. When you look at cancer as a 34-year old, you realized, "Oh, this is borrowed time." A friend of mine who had cancer as a freshman college said that getting cancer was like getting a front row seat to life. Dr. Bob: Wow. Jami Shapiro: Right. I started to look at my own life, and I knew that what I was doing wasn't fulfilling for me. I ended up moving to San Diego from Florida with my now ex-husband, when he took a dean position out here, and it was an opportunity for me to explore what it was that I wanted to do and the first job that I had was actually working at a cancer foundation started by a family who had lost their daughter at 39 to gastroesophageal cancer stage four, and no one knew because we weren't talking about it or what the symptoms were. I loved that they took their tragedy and they turned it into something, which was really very close to who I was. Around the time that I needed to put my daughter into private school, a friend of mine approached me about starting a business selling things for seniors on eBay. That was how we were going to start. Then while she was researching that, we found out about The National Association and they were going to be having their conference in San Diego two months later, and went to that conference, and that was that light bulb that everybody hopes to get, and it was like, "This is what I'm meant to do," and the people that do the work that I do, which is helping seniors when they're transitioning from their homes. It can be the home they've been in for 60 years. It can be the condo that they've moved into, but going into a senior community typically or sometimes into a smaller space is actually very ... It's a tough transition. It's medically identified as relocation stress syndrome, and they say that it is the most difficult transition a person will make in their lifetime. I don't know compared to what you're helping them transition through, but it's tough. Dr. Bob: It's significant. Jami Shapiro: It's significant. Dr. Bob: It's significant, and it's probably under-addressed and under-recognized in general. Jami Shapiro: Absolutely. Right. Then, what their staff represents to them. That's what we're doing is we're helping them go through the mementos of their lives, so I started it that way with a partner. Then, things happen the way life does, and my partner ended up going to work with her husband because he had actually started a business as well. Then, I had to look at how am I going to do this business by myself because I planned on having a partner. I've got three children. Anyway, I ended up shortly after that, putting something on Facebook that I was looking for help because I'm actually as great as my company is, and you have to be very organized to do the work that we do, but I'm not organized. I knew I had to find somebody that was. Initially, I was looking for a partner, couldn't find the right partner. Then, I put something on Facebook in a group of women that I, in San Elijo Hills, we have a little women's site. I posted something, and the first person that responded to me was a woman who had been a stay at home mom for 18 years, and she couldn't find anyone that would hire her. That...