Transcript
Speaker: they would rather feel the comfort of doing what they already know than the discomfort of being challenged to think about something new.
Speaker: And now, you know, again, 2024, a blog's like a dinosaur.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Still do ours.
Speaker: I still do ours.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I'm looking to start mine back up.
Speaker: Yeah, I know.
Speaker: Yeah, everything is like bumper sticker-ish where, you know, if you want something to do really well on Instagram, it can't be a thousand words.
Speaker: You're, you know, if you're pushing 200 words, you're not going to get many I's.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And so...
Speaker: bit concise right everything's changed and it's changing at a very rapid pace and that's just the nature of the world today
Speaker: And so the world as it currently exists is scary for funeral directors because it's changing so fast.
Speaker: It's frightening.
Speaker: And so instead of being curious, most funeral directors have just dug their feet in and go on the defense.
Speaker: Instead of embracing change and being curious and asking questions, well, why is it like this now?
Speaker: Now, why do millennials think this way?
Speaker: Why does Gen Z think this way?
Speaker: They revert to what they know.
Speaker: And it's very egotistical.
Speaker: It's not in accordance with the higher self.
Speaker: It's something where they would rather feel the comfort of doing what they already know than the discomfort of being challenged to think about something new.
Speaker: because for them what they've known has worked.
Speaker: And it's still working because they're still dealing with people who are just like them.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Listen, there's so many great points there.
Speaker: And I kind of giggled in the middle because I'm always reminded my mom like that.
Speaker: She's of that generation.
Speaker: She's turning 70 this year.
Speaker: And, you know, she'll say, don't be telling every why do you have to tell everybody everything?
Speaker: And this not talking about work now, you know, why do you don't tell everybody everything?
Speaker: And
Speaker: what do you mean putting on that social media?
Speaker: Yeah, it's a different world.
Speaker: And I try and explain to them, you get your news from your newspaper.
Speaker: I get mine online like that.
Speaker: We're just different.
Speaker: I don't have physical newspaper.
Speaker: I always hated those things because they're always ridiculously large anyway.
Speaker: It's awkward.
Speaker: But it's yeah, it's just it's evolved and it's just different.
Speaker: And so I just yeah, you've hit on some really, really important points there in terms of talking about how
Speaker: Even when I'm doing presentations for funeral directors and stuff, and I've had conversations with people about this where, you know, we might be talking about, I don't know, kickbacks or commissions or stuff like that.
Speaker: And, oh, but Jen, that's just the way it's always been done.
Speaker: OK, that doesn't mean that that's got to be the way it's got to be always done.
Speaker: Just because it's the way it's always been done in the past doesn't mean it's the way it always has to continue being done.
Speaker: So there is this very sort of archaic and even amongst the young people like that, that was that retort was given to me by somebody in their 30s.
Speaker: And I'm like, what?
Speaker: Because it's just passed on generationally.
Speaker: And if you don't accept it, then you're not a part of the old boys club.
Speaker: And that's absolutely you've hit the nail on the head there.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: I mean, in some I've been referred to as what I do, the sort of the larger events.
Speaker: So it's a funeral.
Speaker: It's still a funeral.
Speaker: It's a memorial, but it's in maybe a grander building.
Speaker: There's food and drink involved.
Speaker: Like I kind of talk, it's like the wake 2.0.
Speaker: It's just bringing back food and drink into that mourning process.
Speaker: Like it's been referred to as piggledy, piggledy bullshit.
Speaker: And I'm like, oh, I'm sorry.
Speaker: Oh, I'm sorry.
Speaker: Like, what?
Speaker: Why?
Speaker: Like, you know, just the.
Speaker: And then there's been references to people who just because they're not in somebody's particular vision and they're called interlopers.
Speaker: I mean, why?
Speaker: They're licensed professional just like you.
Speaker: They have to go through the same standards just like you.
Speaker: What makes them an interloper just because they don't fit into the bracket that you're talking about?
Speaker: Which does bring me to a question.
Speaker: So you've obviously, you're sixth generation, you've grown up in it.
Speaker: What's your thoughts versus family-owned funeral?
Speaker: Yeah, and maybe I'll take it a step farther.
Speaker: That's tough.
Speaker: So the macroeconomics, microeconomics.
Speaker: So family-owned businesses are incredibly micro.
Speaker: where they evolve in a dance with their community.
Speaker: And that's also why people become so ingrained, funeral directors become so ingrained in their opinions about what is right and what is best for the funeral industry, what should be done, what defines professionalism.
Speaker: Because for them, in their specific community, whether it be in Alabama,
Speaker: or whether it be in North Carolina or Texas or California or Washington state, the specific community that they're dealing with is different.
Speaker: Each community has its own sensibilities to it.
Speaker: And sometimes you walk into a community and it's like, wow, I'm in the 1950s.
Speaker: And then other times you walk into one and it's like, oh, this is 20 years ahead of
Speaker: of where the rest of the world is.
Speaker: And those communities from one to another can be right next to each other.
Speaker: And so the funeral director that's serving in the 1950s community, they're doing it right for their community.
Speaker: And the next one over that has green burial options and that focuses on personalization,
Speaker: and they might employ a death doula or perhaps an event planner.
Speaker: A funeral home like that is also right because within their specific context, they're serving that context.
Speaker: So family businesses are oftentimes by nature unparalleled.
Speaker: more microeconomic, where they are honing in on their specific community, on their specific context, and their reflection of that.
Speaker: Whereas something that's corporate, you're going to have
Speaker: It's there's going to be a lot more standardization.
Speaker: So and it's a macro perspective where, you know, it's obviously not going to be the same from one funeral home to the next.
Speaker: That's corporate run.
Speaker: But there is going to be standard procedures that translate because it's corporate.
Speaker: So I think that's one of the main difference.
Speaker: And that has it has pluses and minuses to it.
Speaker: And the family funeral home being connected to the community and being connected with the community and having that more personal connection is something that is probably going to be more likely the case.
Speaker: It's also going to be the case that you work longer hours because you're not staffed as well or you're understaffed.
Speaker: And the expectation is that it's a lifestyle in a family-run business or in a small private home because that's the way that they've lived their lives.
Speaker: They are embedded entirely in their community, in their local community.
Speaker: And that's not always the case when corporate-run funeral homes where there's a lot of transplant plants.
Speaker: Managers who live in one part of Texas are managing a funeral home in another that they've never existed in before.
Speaker: So those same connections aren't there and you just default to the stand features.
Speaker: I'm talking a lot, aren't I?
Speaker: I feel like I'm dominating the conversation and I apologize.
Speaker: Good.
Speaker: I asked you this to give me a breather.
Speaker: People want to hear from you, not from me.
Speaker: Well, no, that's not true.
Speaker: I get tired of hearing myself talk sometimes.
Speaker: So I really don't talk much.
Speaker: And partially because I have kids.
Speaker: Oh, wow.
Speaker: Yeah, they don't let you talk to all that.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: But, yeah, so I think on a larger level, though, I do believe that if a new funeral director is looking to be hired into a corporate or private or family-run,
Speaker: it's oftentimes easier to get into the corporate.
Speaker: And then I think the lack of the personal touch...
Speaker: or the lack of the integration into the community oftentimes will move people towards a family realm.
Speaker: Not always, but that's something that I've seen.
Speaker: From a consumer's perspective, you want to feel connected to the person that you're talking to, to the funeral director that you're talking to.
Speaker: And if there's a family-run funeral home, chances are you probably know them or have some connection to the funeral director.
Speaker: Yeah, before you've walked on the door.
Speaker: Before you've walked in the door.
Speaker: So that's value.
Speaker: Trust is the most important commodity.
Speaker: And I am willing, when it comes to my dead one, my dead loved one being cared for, if I'm a consumer, if I'm somebody looking to hire a funeral home or a funeral director,
Speaker: I'm willing to pay a couple extra hundred more if I trust somebody.
Speaker: And so that's the main thing for consumers.
Speaker: Do you trust the funeral home that you're going to?
Speaker: Yeah, it's interesting because it's something that I've been preaching.
Speaker: I don't know if preaching is the right word.
Speaker: Something that I've been sort of talking about with funeral directors who, you know, are maybe looking to see how I sell what I sell to families and sort of how that all works.
Speaker: And like what I say is.
Speaker: it comes down, absolutely, it comes down to trust, transparency, but also value.
Speaker: So, like, what do they value?
Speaker: Like, as you just said, you'd pay a couple of dollars more or whatever it might be when you trust the person.
Speaker: And, you know, like, and so these conversations happen because somebody might say to me, well, Jen, how did you sell $100,000 in flowers?
Speaker: And, like, they spent nothing on food.
Speaker: Or how did they spend $60,000 on food and then they wanted the venue for free or whatever it might be.
Speaker: And I'm like, that's what they see the value in.
Speaker: You know, they're a foodie or they really like booze or they really like a particular flower or the aesthetic is really important to them or that particular venue is really important to them.
Speaker: So it all just comes down to like what we value.
Speaker: And we're all so different.
Speaker: And I think the sooner, you know, I'm always preaching this, like there's not one thing that will do for me, that will do for you, that will do for 10 million other people.
Speaker: We're all so different.
Speaker: And even a set of twins don't do things the exact same way every single day.
Speaker: And just knowing that, like, never in history, ever, ever, ever again are Jennifer and Caleb going to have a conversation exactly like this one.
Speaker: This is never going to be repeated.
Speaker: And that's just incredible to kind of think about.
Speaker: that, you know, somebody, if I walk out of my apartment tomorrow and just take in a breath, that breath is never going to be repeated ever, ever, ever again in history with exactly the surroundings, exactly the terrible political thing that's going on right now in this country.
Speaker: whatever like all of these all of these moments are sewn together to make these moments happen um and it's just the i just feel like the sooner we realize that we're not all alike and that we all can't be just shipped into a little box i think and i think the gen zers are are pushing that probably more than than us millennials and i think we started the band wagon a little bit right continuing it on um and i think you're we're seeing that with like as you said you started and
Speaker: an archaic blog back in the Stone Age when we started blogging.
Speaker: And now like they're on TikTok doing doing what you spent 10 hours writing a blog on.
Speaker: They're doing in a 10 second reel of here's here's the right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They, you know, they always say history will repeat itself.
Speaker: And so we probably will come back to the written word and people will get sort of to be too much.
Speaker: I mean, there's already too much, honestly, like I can't keep up.
Speaker: I do have a TikTok account, but good God.
Speaker: Yeah, right.
Speaker: Keeping up with everything.
Speaker: So tell me when it came to then writing the books and how many books have you got now?
Speaker: So when it came to writing the books, what was the inspiration behind that?
Speaker: Or did somebody sort of approach you and sort of say, listen, love your blog, want to put it in a book form?
Speaker: Or, you know, how did that journey go for you?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I always wanted to write a book.
Speaker: I did.
Speaker: that was part of my motivation in starting a blog was to eventually be able to write a book.
Speaker: And it got to a place where people reached out to me for both books and asked if I wanted to write one.
Speaker: And I said, yes.
Speaker: So I like books.
Speaker: I still, even though I don't get to read them as much as I used to, books are a safe place for me.
Speaker: They're a place where I can lose myself for a little bit in somebody else's story, in somebody else's thoughts, in somebody else's head, in somebody else's heart, somebody else's soul.
Speaker: And there's a lasting value to books.
Speaker: So that's kind of what I wanted to do.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And the material that you write, you can still identify with it to some extent.
Speaker: But that whole process of working through drafts and then having it published and then once it's finally for sale, it's like two, three years removed from when you started and you felt it, which is always an odd thing.
Speaker: Just how you can write a book and then once it's finally born, it's...
Speaker: You don't identify with it as much as you did.
Speaker: So, yeah, I mean, I look at those books and I'm glad that I wrote them and they have my name attached to them and and they are my words.
Speaker: And at the same time, they feel so far away from me.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No, writing a book, it's it's a full time job in and of itself.
Speaker: I was I was pretty blessed with my first one and I'm writing my fourth one at the moment.
Speaker: But it's well, thank you.
Speaker: But it's it's more it's kind of similar to what you said.
Speaker: It's sort of there.
Speaker: It's in my brain and I sort of just need to kind of get it out.
Speaker: And I think when you are a writer and a speaker and stuff like that, I think.
Speaker: And I don't know, I don't necessarily describe myself as a creative, but I think that's just an outlet for me, whether it's speaking and having interesting conversations with people or just sitting down on my laptop and just letting things.
Speaker: I've always journaled.
Speaker: I've always kept a diary, dear diary, you know.
Speaker: have always just enjoyed sort of getting yeah getting thoughts down on paper and it was what started as a child did sort of because as we get busier as adult did sort of fade away but now has almost become book writing instead of journaling every single day as such even though now you're it's recommended that that's the thing that you should do not everyone has time for that so tell us we've kind of come through the journey a little bit Caleb's journey
Speaker: Tell us about the moment, the decision of stepping away from your family funeral home business and what does that look like?
Speaker: What did that look like for you then?
Speaker: And what does it look like for you now?
Speaker: And sort of what brought you to that decision?
Speaker: I was burnt out.
Speaker: And this is the part now of attempting to be transparent about something that's being met with resistance within the funeral industry.
Speaker: So the first step was being transparent about what it's like to be a funeral director and
Speaker: What goes on behind the closed curtains?
Speaker: So what is more difficult is being transparent about what it's like to experience the mental health side of being a funeral director.
Speaker: and being transparent about burnout and depression and anxiety and suicidal ideation, all of these things that are attached to working 12-hour days around death.
Speaker: So yeah, I kind of, I did not see a future for myself at my family's Sheener home.
Speaker: And my dad's retiring soon, and the future that I saw
Speaker: was very grim.
Speaker: And I knew that if I continued to stay, that my burnout would not decrease, but would get drastically worse.
Speaker: So I made the very hard decision, and it's still a decision that is, it's gray.
Speaker: It's not a black and white thing.
Speaker: It might be easy to say, well, it was
Speaker: damaging my mental health and I was not living a life that I enjoyed and say, well, that's reason enough and it is.
Speaker: But then the other side of it was it's your job, it's your identity, it's how you put food on the table.
Speaker: It's what do they say that bravery only happens or bravery happens in the face of fear.
Speaker: It was a brave step for me to leave.
Speaker: Because there's a lot of on there.
Speaker: It's the only thing I've ever done my entire life.
Speaker: It was the only thing that I was encouraged and groomed to do.
Speaker: And being a funeral director is an identity in itself.
Speaker: It's not, you know, people say it's, it's a lifestyle.
Speaker: It's, it's like a marriage in some sense where you become everywhere you go in your community, people see you as a funeral director.
Speaker: It's, it's who you are leaving that identity.
Speaker: And leaving the only thing that I knew has had its own set of difficulties and problems.
Speaker: But I knew that if I continued that what I was dealing with wouldn't get better.
Speaker: So I left.
Speaker: And yeah, so that's... And this is the part that, again, isn't talked about.
Speaker: There is a lot of toxicity in the funeral industry.
Speaker: There's a lot of narcissistic personalities in the funeral industry.
Speaker: There is very little space for work-life balance.
Speaker: There's very little space for mental health conversations.
Speaker: There's very little support.
Speaker: There's very little resources.
Speaker: We're underserved when it comes to mental health, not just because we're not seen by the public as needing it, but because we act like we don't need it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Somebody said the other day, you know, the gist of it is, is that how can I focus on my bad day when I'm serving people who have just experienced their worst day?
Speaker: So we are constantly pushing our own concerns, our own needs, our own wants aside because we're serving families who are in the midst of grief.
Speaker: And in the midst of the hardest time of their life.
Speaker: So we do not tend to ourselves and we do not care for ourselves.
Speaker: And burnout is a huge thing.
Speaker: And I'll just make this statement.
Speaker: I don't think the industry is going to survive much longer.
Speaker: I don't think the funeral industry as it exists today will survive too much longer.
Speaker: And it's going to have to reshape itself pretty drastically.
Speaker: But it's currently run by boomers and elder Gen Xers, millennials and Gen Z who have boundaries and who have values of self-care and want a healthy work-life balance.
Speaker: those people aren't going to stay.
Speaker: And so we have what we're currently seeing right now, where so many funeral homes are unable to retain staff and so many funeral homes are understaffed because they are unable to meet the needs of their staff.
Speaker: They're unable to understand the needs of their staff.
Speaker: And so I don't know what the future looks like.
Speaker: I don't
Speaker: I have an idea.
Speaker: I think it's going to become a lot more personalized.
Speaker: And the things that are fringe now are going to become much more popular.
Speaker: But the funeral industry as it exists, as an industry, I don't know that it will survive the millennials.
Speaker: It will survive the boomers dying.
Speaker: It'll survive Gen X dying, but it will not survive us.
Speaker: So we either adapt, which we're not good at, or die.
Speaker: And I think the current iteration of death care as an industry will die.
Speaker: And it will take longer in some places that are behind the bell curve.
Speaker: but it will happen very quickly in other places that aren't.
Speaker: And I think we're already starting to see that, where funeral homes that are avant-garde, that are attempting to be progressive, are recognizing these changes now and are putting things in place to adapt to them.
Speaker: But yeah, I don't know what the future holds with the funeral industry.
Speaker: I don't think it will survive much longer.
Speaker: That is some powerful words.
Speaker: And I don't disagree with you.
Speaker: I definitely think it is going to become more personalized.
Speaker: I think it's going to kind of become a bit more broken up in some senses, because I think which there's good and bad parts, I think, like everything when the Internet, you know, was born.
Speaker: with the good and it was great.
Speaker: In came the bad as well.
Speaker: Kids are glued to their phones nowadays and glued to their iPads.
Speaker: And, you know, I remember the days when it was, you know, are you bored?
Speaker: Go out and play.
Speaker: Go out and find someone.
Speaker: And I was just on Instagram.
Speaker: There was when I was two years of age, apparently I went, my dad was supposed to be looking after me and I went off looking for my mum.
Speaker: She was grocery shopping and I literally walked like half a mile or something to the supermarket.
Speaker: At two.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: You know.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: There's the 80s in Ireland.
Speaker: So, I mean, I was.
Speaker: But thankfully I was fine.
Speaker: But, you know, we were just kind of saying how if that happened nowadays and a neighbor, a male neighbor family picked me up, brought me home.
Speaker: If that happened nowadays, he'd probably have been thrown in jail.
Speaker: But it's insane.
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: It's just bonkers.
Speaker: And so, you know, in with the good comes in with the bad, I always think.
Speaker: And so I do think like the rise of, quote, this person who, the rise of interlopers in the business, I think...
Speaker: In with the good comes with the bad as well.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So you've got these death doulas who are an incredible part of the chain, a bit like midwifery for when you're giving birth and having somebody there to hold your hand, especially when you don't have community and do it for you, having somebody that can kind of just make you feel OK and trust and comfort, transparency.
Speaker: But then, you know, there's some of these death doulas that are sort of tipping, tipping into the funeral space and tipping into the natural burial space.
Speaker: And so we're kind of a bit like what we talked about earlier, how life is cyclical.
Speaker: It's we are sort of coming back now to, you know, washing the bodies ourselves and, you know, what we used to do back in Ireland.
Speaker: And while I don't think there's a mad, going to be a mad rush for that, I do think it's interesting to have a bit what I touched on earlier about having options for everybody.
Speaker: There's a seat for everybody at the table.
Speaker: Okay, you're as a funeral home, you like to do traditional funerals.
Speaker: You're going to have your traditional people come to you and they're going to go through the alphabet and have everything.
Speaker: And then there's going to be the person who wants acclimation or the person who wants composting or the person who wants to throw a party when they die or the person who wants to have a mixture of all these different religions because you know what, they dipped into a little bit of everything when they were living.
