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At 9 years old, Lindsay Jurist-Rosner became a caregiver for her mother when she was diagnosed with primary progressive multiple sclerosis. While caring for her mother for over 25 years, Lindsay became obsessed with the topic. 66 million Americans take care of aging, chronically ill, or disabled loved ones, and Lindsay created a company to help take the pressure off of them. Lindsay is the CEO for Wellthy, a mission driven organization, which provides support and expertise for caregivers and their loved ones.

While building Wellthy from the ground up, Lindsay realized sales skills were vital to the company’s success. Her best advice for entrepreneurs is to make sure they know how to sell and pitch ideas, concepts, and products. Although sales can have a negative connotation, leaders are constantly selling. Whether Lindsay is selling the concept of Wellthy to potential investors, selling products to potential customers, or selling the mission of the company to potential team members, Lindsay incorporates her passion into sales. Lindsay also encourages listeners to empathize with their audiences and think about what they are looking for and how to meet their needs.

From one caregiver to another, Lindsay shares advice for those who tend to put the weight of the world on their shoulders. It is important to put your own needs first. Do not feel like you are being selfish. Even Lindsay had to have the hard conversation with her mom about moving out of the house. Lindsay explained how her decision to move out helped her to regain the mother/daughter relationship, instead of only serving as her mom’s aide. Women tend to take on the role of caregiver, and it is important for their families to also remember to step in and help take some pressure off of them. Lindsay hopes to instill the idea of delegating tasks in order to share responsibilities with others and not carry the burden of caregiver alone.

Using the mission of the company as their driving factor, Wellthy has a built in culture and their workforce is truly one big family. Many of Wellthy’s founding team members never worked in health care, including Lindsay, but they all have a personal connection to the mission. In forming the company, they used their passion for the topic to help them research and develop a way to create a better healthcare experience. Wellthy was founded on a completely different approach from the standard health care system and was launched direct to consumer, with the position of being a family first service. Now, Wellthy services are also offered as an employee benefit to help organizations address the caregiving crisis, which has previously been widely ignored. Being a tech powered company, Wellthy is able to deliver consistent service across the country. Every day, Wellthy team members are excited to set out to develop an experience for families to provide what the family may need.

To learn more about Wellthy’s mission, products, and services, visit their website: www.wellthy.com.

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In his current role with Aetna, Dr. Daniel Knecht leads the team who creates and executes programs which impact the unmet health needs for their members. They work with internal stakeholders and external partners to implement strategies. Currently, the opioid epidemic is at the forefront of the issues Dr. Knecht and his team are trying to help their members tackle.

The opioid epidemic is the biggest health crisis to impact American society. Although it started in the late 1990’s when there was inappropriate marketing of opioids to patients dealing with chronic pain, our society and species has been struggling with opioids for much longer. Hypocrisy, the father of medicine, warned against the duel nature of opioids. In the US, veterans struggled with opioids after the civil war. Research and data have proven opioids are not effective for treating chronic pain. There are many other alternative treatments for chronic pain other than opioids, and Dr. Knecht and his colleagues are helping to bring awareness to these additional pain management options. Dr. Knecht explains how pain started to be looked at as a vital sign, but it is important to understand it is not realistic for human beings to be pain free. The opioid epidemic has been an issue for more than a century, but the unprecedented crisis is currently worse than it has ever been.

All walks of life are effected by opioid use disorder. Dr. Knecht believes as a society we need to start treating this problem as a medical condition, and less as a mental health issue or moral shortcoming. Those who know someone struggling with opioid use disorder may not fully understand the condition or treatment. Education for families, friends and even medical professionals will be key in helping to turn this epidemic around. Over the past two years, Dr. Knecht and his team were able to travel to the areas hardest hit by the epidemic. He will continue to work with local medical professionals to train and educate them on opioid use disorder. Aetna has also implemented the Guardian Angel Program. The program utilized trained medical professionals to call Aetna members who had overdosed to discuss what had happened and how they could help. They were able to connect with, educate, and even book appointments for many members who had suffered from an overdose and were able to aid them in their recovery. Dr. Knecht is excited and hopeful these programs and others will help to increase awareness of opioids and the treatments available.

Listen for more on this epidemic including Aetna’s comprehensive approach to addressing the opioid crisis, how Dr. Knecht believes leaders in organizations can aide colleagues who may be struggling with opioid use disorder, informative understanding of opioid use disorder treatments, and more on the different treatments available to help with chronic pain.

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Two industry leaders go one on one to discuss leadership, company culture and the changes in healthcare. Anthony and Paul Marden, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, New Jersey, give insight for young leaders and entrepreneurs that are imperative for success.

In his first question to Paul, Anthony inquiries about Paul’s earliest leadership memories. Paul recalls his early years in sports and how it took the group to come together to lock in on one goal. He remembers how being named captain meant that his teammates were always watching him and he knew he had to work hard and to do the right thing by being in the right place in the right time. In sports, he found that practice was paramount and understood what it meant to be relied upon as a leader.

From his first experiences of leadership, to now being a leader in a large corporation, Paul uses the same principles to guide his colleagues. Through one of the worst work life experiences, he was relied upon to help turn his organization around. Because he had been working hard and doing the right thing, management knew they could put their faith in him to be a part of the team to rebuild the fallen company.

Now that he spearheads the company’s efforts, he also takes a very active approach on helping to shape the culture. UnitedHealthcare’s tagline is “helping people live healthier lives” and that is what Paul strives to do every day in his work. It is engrained in the company’s culture and his goal is to continue to help improve healthcare by making it more affordable and less complicated. During “unfreezing sessions” managers are called upon to immerse themselves in the company’s culture, which includes learning and living by their values of integrity, compassion, relationships, innovations, and performance. Anthony asks Paul how values shape a team and he explains that whether they realize it or not, leaders have huge shadows. A leader will dictate how the rest of the work force will perform by both direct and indirect cultural development.

Paul encourages young leaders to ask for opinions. He explains that soliciting input from a diverse group of people empowers managers to make a better decision. He also advises to never forget the consumer. Paul emphasizes why it is so important to remember why they buy your product. A good leader is one that has integrity and can be trusted upon to deliver on what they say they will do.

Paul’s leadership is not just for his colleagues. Check out his blog, where he continues to help simplify the understanding of the healthcare system for all: http://paulmarden.blogspot.com/