Building Homes, Not Facilities: Mark Maxfield on The Cottages’ Approach to Senior Care | Nursing Home Series

Anthony Codispoti: Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired by how they’ve overcome adversity. My name is Anthony Kodespode and today’s guest is Mark Maxfield. He is the CEO of the Cottages Assisted Living and Memory Care, an organization that offers assisted living, memory care, adult day care and respite services within comfortable residential style homes. Their mission is to create close-knit communities where each resident can receive personalized care from dedicated staff.

Now under Mark’s leadership, the Cottages has expanded to 10 locations since it opened at first home in 2001. Mark has celebrated over 23 years of working with the business and he has also served as the president of the Idaho Healthcare Association. He currently holds the position of chair, the National Center for Assisted Living’s board of directors symbolizing his commitment to advancing care standards nationally. Mark’s experience in the long-term care industry spans operations management, leadership and entrepreneurship, making him a trusted voice in senior living. He has also recognized for his dedication to employee development and positive impact across the senior living industry. Now before we get into all that good stuff, today’s episode is brought to you by my company, Add Back Benefits Agency, where we offer very specific and unique employee benefits that are both great for your team and fiscally optimized for your bottom line. One recent client was able to add over $900 per employee per year in extra cash flow by implementing one of our innovative programs. Results vary for each company and some organizations may not be eligible.

To find out if your company qualifies, contact us today at addbackbenefitsagency.com. Now back to our guest today, the CEO of the Cottages, Mark Maxfield. Appreciate you making the time to share your story today. Thank you.

Nice to meet you Anthony. Okay, so before you started the Cottages, what did your work experience look like? How did it kind of lead you to where you are now?

Mark Maxfield: Yeah, great question before this and it’s been a while, like I mentioned, almost 24 years. I was, I guess I call myself a social worker. I was running group homes for delinquent boys.

You know, they’re teenagers, so they’ve had some troubles in life. That will hold us to go into the adult system, but definitely weren’t allowed to be at home anymore, so we put them in group homes and I did that for about eight or nine years.

Anthony Codispoti: And what came after that? Was it right into starting the Cottages or there’s something else in between?

Mark Maxfield: I did some things before that, but yeah, correct after that, teamed up with my father, actually, and moved back home to Idaho and opened our first home.

Anthony Codispoti: So why specifically this type of business?

Mark Maxfield: Yeah, so there’s a real need for assist living out there and there was back then as well. And frankly, I didn’t know what assist living was. My dad, he’d kind of watched my career and he said, hey son, you want to come back home, do some assist living. And my question was, that sounds pretty good. What’s that?

I didn’t even know what it was. And he basically said, we’re going to take care of people like grandpa. And my grandfather and I were very close. He lived to be 100. He was at a nursing home, fallen, died, and he would have loved to have been an assist living facility. He was appropriate in that small town where he lived. There just wasn’t one available. There wasn’t as many around back then. And so I thought, yeah, I want to do that.

Anthony Codispoti: And so did your dad have a background in the industry?

Mark Maxfield: He did. He’d have some background in development, the real estate development side of assist living. And that’s when we teamed up. Same thing. He would develop and build the property and then I would take over and run the business side when the operations.

Anthony Codispoti: But who did you learn from how to run the business and the operations side of a care facility? It’s not something you had done before.

Mark Maxfield: Correct. I had worked in homes and known how to work with residents in the home. I had worked with staff in leadership position and a lot of it just trial by fire. One thing, probably one of the best decisions I made though, as I said, well, okay, if I’m going to work in assistive living and work with caregivers, I need to know what they do. So I went and got a job with the caregiver for close to six months. Just working in the home nights, weekends, toileting, feeding past meds, the whole thing, just so I’d have at least a basic understanding what it is my caregiver will do and what’s the nut and bolts of the system living business itself.

Anthony Codispoti: So once you knew that you were going to come back home, you were going to start this business with your father, you’re like, yeah, I got to understand this from more of a grassroots level. You went and got a job somewhere else. So you had kind of that base level of experience.

Mark Maxfield: Absolutely. And it’s something I still draw on from today. And we’re not giving me some credibility with the caregivers. Yeah, I’m the boss, you know, I’m the boss. I don’t know what we do. But I said, oh, no, I was a caregiver. I know exactly what you do, which is why I appreciate you so much.

Anthony Codispoti: Yeah. So you started that first facility, what year was it? 2000?

Mark Maxfield: I built it through 2000, opened it in 2000, towards the middle of 2001. And the interesting that we built it on my grandparents’ land, it was kind of bringing it back. There’s full circles of term, I don’t know, it was just really neat though to put it on land, that, you know, build a place that he would have enjoyed being at. That’s kind of been my guiding principle, you know, I’m taking care of grandfathers and grandmas.

Anthony Codispoti: Yeah, I like that. So, okay, so you started this first facility in 2001. What were those early days, weeks, months like, you know, starting a new business that you didn’t have a ton of experience in? I have to imagine there were probably some tough days.

Mark Maxfield: There were, I was just young and dumb enough to not realize what I was getting into. And thank goodness, you know, I think a lot of good business started that way, they think, yeah, I can do this.

And so you dive in and not realize what you’re doing. And no doubt, I made some mistakes. But my very first hire was probably the best hire of my life. And she had had experience in skilled nursing facilities. And so she and I together, we wrote policies and procedures for the first, for the first building location, which she’s gone now, that we’ve built on and was kind of provided the framework for that first one. Back then, it’s just a little bit different, regulations were different, and allowed a little bit of room for us to make just a few mistakes, but we figured it out quick.

Anthony Codispoti: When did you feel like you were kind of on solid footing, and you were ready to kind of replicate, open up another location? My dad didn’t wait for that.

Mark Maxfield: While I was running the first building, he had already purchased land in several other cities. And so I had a few months to get ready for the next one, another city, probably 30 minutes, 40 minute drive from there.

And that one opened. And then a few months later, another one, and then another one. And so I just had to quickly build a team and just get used to this growth mindset. And again, another thing that I didn’t realize how good it was for me, I didn’t have time to sit back, I just had to go.

Anthony Codispoti: And how big were each of these facilities? How many residents were you caring for? Roughly how many employees did you have?

Mark Maxfield: Yes, good question, because that’s kind of our model. Each building was 16 beds. So they’re smaller, and just not as many employees. And that fits well, because in Idaho, there’s a 9 to 16 bed rule breakout. So 16, they will be at the highest census count in that rules. And so each one of our homes are 16 bed. And then we come back around, we build another building next to it. So we could break it out, have one assist living and one of memory care.

Anthony Codispoti: And so what is this 9 to 16 rule? Because it seems to me like there’d be efficiencies of scale to build much bigger facilities rather than lots of smaller ones kind of scattered around the city. Certainly.

Mark Maxfield: And there’s a lot of companies out there that have the larger buildings. And that’s, that’s fine. It’s just a different concept. Our belief has always been that folks want to live in a home. Right, they live in a home their whole life, they raise their family.

Now they’re coming from their own home, they want to live in another home. And so the 9 to 16, that would probably be confusing when I said that Idaho Department of Health and Welfare has a set of rules for facilities within the nine count to 16. You know, over 16, it’s entirely different building design. It’s more of a commercial building, different set of rules. And the buildings start looking less and less like a home. Because if you’re going to build 17, you might as well build 40 bed just for economy to scale. And so they’re different building, they still give great care, but this is a different building design, different feel. So we’ve always liked that 16 bed model.

Anthony Codispoti: So you kind of use that limitation as, you know, one of your points of differentiation. And it allows you to rather than this, you know, huge sort of hotel complex looking facility is more of a home style environment.

Mark Maxfield: It is. Yeah. If you walk in any of our buildings, it’s going to look and feel like a very big comfortable home, you know, with residential style kitchen and furniture and everything about it’s going to look and feel homey as opposed to, yeah, the larger resort hotel feel.

Anthony Codispoti: And you guys have stuck with this model throughout all the facilities that you’ve opened? We have.

Mark Maxfield: And admittedly, there are some challenges to that, but that’s just kind of our philosophy is the smaller and they work and they work well in the smaller communities. Idaho, there’s a lot of rural communities, you know, eight to 10,000, where a larger facility just wouldn’t pencil. But we’ve been able to make it work with what, you know, 16 bed building and then later years later, we’ll come in and build another building next to it, also 16 bed. Then we have an assist living and memory care like I shared a little bit ago.

Anthony Codispoti: Yeah, say more about that and sort of the in general, the services that you offer help, you know, paint a picture of what you guys can do for your residents.

Mark Maxfield: Yeah, it’s the industry is called assistive living, but within the system industry, there’s another differentiation called memory care. And I think people by now know what that is. Those are suffering from the memory loss, Alzheimer’s, and they require just a little bit different services and care. And the buildings are required to be secured, you know, where we have some flexibility on their movements. And so the rules do require that they be separated between those who just require assist living services, you know, help with their activity, the daily living, versus those require activity, the daily living as well as memory care services, because they’re diagnosed as they’re not safe, you know, to be allowed to come and go, obviously. No.

Anthony Codispoti: When you were going through this kind of rapid growth, your dad was sort of driving for you by acquiring all this land and building new facilities. It had to have been a ton of challenges in that, especially as you’re kind of learning your way through a new business, new to you business model. What what if you could encapsulate it, what was the one biggest challenge through that, that crazy growth period? Well, several.

Mark Maxfield: My dad’s challenge was finding the real estate and building an appropriate building. I mean, they’re very asset intensive, a lot of resources. So there’s the financing and all that side, which is difficult for any company. My, as far as that time, you know, I was in operations, was finding good quality team members. You can’t just hire anybody to come in. When these are residents that really need and frankly deserve people who have a heart for caregiving. And so it’s making sure you have a team and they have to gel. I suspect we’ll talk more about that later, but they really have to work well together and be in it for the right reason.

And they’ll find people. It’s not the highest paying job as well. I mean, they work very hard for not a lot of, you know, not a lot of pay. So it’s one of the things I’ve been working on is really making sure we pay fairly.

Anthony Codispoti: Yeah, actually, let’s go ahead and talk about that now, because this is a, you know, a key thing in most industries and yours in particular, where it’s it’s hard to find good folks. It’s hard to hold on to good folks. You know, the work is very rewarding from what others have told me, but it’s not always easy.

What are some strategies that you’ve used, Mark, to both find these folks in the first place and then once you’ve got them to do a better job holding on to them, make sure they don’t leave?

Mark Maxfield: My answer is easy. I’ll say it with one word, but there’s a lot to that to unpack, but it’s culture. You have to have a great culture in this business, any business really, and the leaders that have figured that out, you know, have really developed great companies.

And so that has been my primary goal, particularly since my team’s gotten larger is build a company where people want to work for you. All of my people, they could leave and go somewhere else and make an extra 25 cents an hour. You know, they could find a job to do that. They choose this day because they like where they work. People don’t leave bad jobs. They leave bad managers, right?

They leave bad leaders. And so we’re, I don’t want to use the word family too strong, but really that’s the kind of feeling we have is particularly with our residents. There’s, we all there have the same mindset, the same mission. And so that’s been my number one goal is build a company that people want to work at. And that being said, we do try to, you know, minimum pay market wages as well as other benefits too. You know, there’s, you have health insurance, the 401k, all the other tangibles that people need. There’s other things too that they’re outside of the pay that makes, that incentivize people to stay.

Anthony Codispoti: Can you think of a particular story that might better help to encapsulate the culture that you’ve built there? Maybe the way that you were able to help take care of a certain employee or the way an employee was able to help the company or to help a resident in a particular way that kind of stands out a little bit in your head.

Mark Maxfield: Oh gosh, I suppose if I had some time I could think of some cool stories, but I see many stories all the time that remind me when I go around, I go around to like go to staff meetings and just listen in and just get a feel for what they’re doing. I hear caregivers use words like my company or my home, my residents.

You know, when they start taking personal ownership, that’s when you know that they’re there. You know, burnout is when you feel like you’re working on someone else’s project. If you’re working on your own goals, your own projects, your company, you don’t get burnout as easy. And so that’s another one of my goals is just make people feel like this is your company as well. These are your residents.

Help me. And then I do a lot to incentivize them and thank them for what they do. So they feel like, and I tell them all the time, you are what makes the company go well. So they really feel invested. I guess that’s the word.

Anthony Codispoti: I love that because you know, what you’re saying there, you know, maybe you’re not thinking of a specific example at the moment, but you are often overhearing how your employees refer to my patients, my company, my organization. So whatever it is that you’re doing is clearly having the attendant effect of developing the culture that you value so highly. That’s pretty.

Mark Maxfield: Well, I’ve tried to stay present. You know, in the early days, I was in each home every day. Come in, I knew all the employees by name. I’d have lunch with them. I knew all the residents by name.

And I was, as we’ve gotten more and more building, we’re up to over 20 buildings now. Admittedly, I don’t know every name, but I still reach out to them personally. Well, here’s right here. This is my task list for the week. Their name, how long they’ve been with the company and where they work. And I’m going to write on a handwritten note and send it to their home. Congratulations on hitting your fifth anniversary with the cottages. Thank you so much for what you do. I appreciate you. This company is great because of you.

And so, you know, I’ve received help. I mean, there’s someone in the office that prints this out for me and knows how it’s all the days. I don’t have the time to do that. But by doing that, I’m able to just kind of stay in touch with them. And again, I go to staff meetings and do what I can. That’s nice.

Anthony Codispoti: Yeah, with 20 buildings, with, you know, staff of over 100 people, you’re clearly a very busy guy. I’m curious why the motivation to, you know, join different groups like, you know, President of the Idaho Healthcare Association, the chair of the NCAL, you know, board of directors. What drives you to do that with all the other things that you have going on?

Mark Maxfield: Yeah, I asked myself that many times. And clearly, I couldn’t do it without a solid team behind me, you know, to carry the water, if you will, as I go do some of these things. But I really, I care about the industry that much. As the industry grows, things could change. Regulations, obviously, with the government funding. And so my objective has always been to be one of the decision makers, so that we can keep this industry what it’s intended to be.

Great quality care for residents, patients, whatever word you use. And as it gets more and more in the limelight, particularly with our politicians, well intended, they want to change it to fit what they think it should be, not what it really should be. And so that’s why I’ve evolved myself so much, first on the state level, so I would have a voice in the state politics, and be the expert in these committee meetings and stuff. And then I pretty much served all the positions there, I was encouraged to run for a national seat. And I’ve been on that chair for, or on that board for past 14 years. And then I eventually ran for chair. And so I’m taking my turn as the voice for that. And I’ve had the opportunity to be on the Hill in Washington, DC, many times.

I meet with our senators and legislators and say, here’s what that law is going to have impact on the ground, on the ground in small town, Idaho, or small town anywhere. I can see why you like that, but it’s really a dumb rule. It’s a dumb law. Here’s why.

And recently would be the minimum staffing rule. And so, and I like that kind of thing. I’ve enjoyed that process. I enjoyed the board process. I was on school board for 15 years on my local hospital board for 10 years. I enjoyed the board process and the influence and touch that gets me with decision makers.

Anthony Codispoti: So you feel like you’re having an impact in that work that you’re doing? You feel like at least some of the people that you’re meeting with are are receptive to the feedback that you’re providing?

Mark Maxfield: Sure, I hope so. We definitely spent a lot of time doing and answering questions. Yes, yes, I have had an impact as long as, you know, it’s not just me, everyone that had the opportunity to serve on boards with me. We’re all very passionate about this industry. I’ve been, you know, almost 24 years. And so, if not me, who? I’ve always asked that question.

Anthony Codispoti: That’s sitting around waiting for somebody else to raise their hand, stepping in the front of the line raising your hand.

Mark Maxfield: Yeah, and then complaining about whatever comes down the pike. Well, I don’t want to be complaining. I want to be there in the beginning influencing what happens.

Anthony Codispoti: So you’ve got, what did you say, over 20 buildings now? Are there plans for more? What does growth look like for you looking forward?

Mark Maxfield: Well, I currently have one building under construction. This will be the second building on that in that town. So we’ve had a just living facility there for several years. Now we’re building a new building and we’ll be able to do the just living and memory care. Recently closed on some land in another town. Going to build two buildings at the same time there. And I’m looking for land in other places too.

So my growth strategy has always been to grow slowly and wisely, but where needed. I think there’s a need for the cottages. There’s other companies out there and so do a great job. If you truly believe in your product and what you do, then you look for places where your company can build. And so, you know, I still got a few years left in this business. And so my goal is to grow where it makes sense. And to have it, it’s been fun.

Anthony Codispoti: What do you think are the biggest differentiators between you and some of the organizations out there?

Mark Maxfield: Yeah, let me see if I can answer. I’m gonna try and be polite. Every company has their own philosophy, I guess, and how they do things. And then there’s a lot of good other facilities out there. I don’t mean to, you know, intend anything else. Our mission statement is very simple. We treat people right. And that you can see that from me down to the very first person here for the first day. And that’s why the mission statement is so short.

Anybody can memorize it. So all their decisions are guiding by that. We treat people right. And so it’s really to say, oh, our care is the greatest or whatever. And we do have great cares that everybody in my company, they know what the mission statement is. They know how to interpret it. And they know what it means in their day to day activities. And so I like to think that’s what sets us apart, is we’re all on that same bus. Maybe on the driver, that bus, but that’s a big bus, a lot of seats. We’re all on it with the same purpose.

Anthony Codispoti: You know, as I think about your business market, seems to me that you kind of serve two masters. You’ve got your patients, your customers, your clients. And then you’ve got your employees. And I’m curious as you think about growth, which one of those is the more challenging aspect? Is it once the place is built, getting the beds filled, or is it getting the staff in there? Which of those two hurdles is kind of the most challenging for you in the current environment?

Mark Maxfield: Anthony, that’s the best question you’ve asked me yet. And I’m glad you did, because my business, my philosophy changed for the better when I thought about, you know, census, billing beds, residents. And I changed my focus to my staff.

And I can’t remember exactly when that was, but I think it was probably when I realized, you know what, I’m not in there every day passing meds. I’m not the one getting them out of bed, getting them dressed, getting them to shower, doing all those things. My people are. So if I care about good care for my residents, then I better make sure that I have the best staff. And so I have a little sign right here. It says I’m obsessed with the culture of my company. And I know that means taking care of my staff. And so the question was, you know, what was the different, what was different between the two?

Anthony Codispoti: You kind of, which one do you find more challenging? And I think you kind of took the answer in a little bit of a different direction, which was great in that, you know, hey, I, there was a big breakthrough for you when you stopped focusing as much on how many, you know, what’s our occupancy percentage and focused, what do my staff need? What are my employees need?

Mark Maxfield: Yeah, once I stopped trying to build a business and, you know, build a team, the business took care of itself. You know, so I, my focus is on building a team of people from my C-suite folks all the way down to again, the very brand new person who’s there to scrub toilets.

Once I worry about them, the business is taking care of itself. So has the census. So has the cares, quality of our food, everything. That was a huge breakthrough for me.

Anthony Codispoti: This is a recurring theme from a number of my guest marks. I’d like to maybe peel back a layer of the onion here if you don’t mind and explore this a little bit more because I’ve heard this over and over again that when I stopped trying to focus on the numbers or what was best for me and I started focusing more on how can I help this person? What does that employee need? You know, do you have everything that, you know, you need to be doing well at your job that I don’t know, like the clouds just sort of parted and things magically started to take care of themselves. Clearly, it’s not magic. What do you think is going on? What happened when you had that mindset shift?

Mark Maxfield: Stop seeing them as employees and I know I referred to them as that sometimes just for ease, but and as people like you, they have homes, families, dreams. They’re here because they need to work a job. They need a living and find out what it is they want. Many people and I tell that every month I have a meeting for all new employee, new employee orientation. I tell them some of you here just for a job until you’re on to the better one.

That’s fine. Some of you here if you want a career. Some of you here if you want to move up, you want leadership, you want to become a nurse, whatever.

I want to know what that is. My goal is to help you achieve that and I’ve had many, many people over the years go from caregiver to leadership, caregiver to nurse, become an RN, get some skills until they apply for their next job. I’ll help them write their resume. As long as they’re their best here or while I have them, I want to help them reach their goals.

When I realize that that’s the best way to lead people, then they just, I don’t want to say they just, they’re better. They’re happier, which translates to retention and happier employees and better employees. You’re not going to keep every employee the rest of your life. Some you don’t want to, they don’t want to, but while they’re here, they’re going to be at their best because they’re happy.

Anthony Codispoti: You’re letting them know that they’re valued and that’s a big part of what plays into those, you know, you overhearing those conversations about my company. You’re saying, you know, my patients, my clients, my customers, you’ve given them that sense of ownership because you’ve helped them and you’ve taken care of them, that you’ve created an environment that they want to be at.

Mark Maxfield: Yeah, and it’s true. It is their company. They spend as many hours here as I do. They work just as hard as I do at anyone else. So they should say that.

Anthony Codispoti: So, you know, obviously you guys have seen some significant growth, Mark. You’re up over 20 different locations. You’ve got more that are coming. How do you, as you know, you continue to grow, continue to maintain that close-knit intimate feel inside of each of these facilities?

Mark Maxfield: Yeah, it hasn’t been easy. The things that I used to do daily, obviously I have other people doing as well. No, you know, I’m not in the homes every day, but someone on my leadership team is. And so, are they, do they believe as I did? Are they acting?

Are they speaking? Are they doing everything when they’re in those homes as I would have, or as I want? And they’re going to have their own personal touch to their own flavor. But if they’re on board, if they’re living the mission statement, it shouldn’t matter if it’s me or someone else. They’re still seeing and hearing the same, words, the same topics, same leadership principles from them as they did from me. And sometimes even better because I’ve hired people that are frankly better than me at a lot of these jobs. And I tell them that and it doesn’t bother me to say that.

Anthony Codispoti: That should be the goal, right? Yeah. Yeah. And you kind of touched on something there that I’d be curious to get your thoughts on. When you started this business, very small, one facility, you have to wear all kinds of hats. You have to wear every hat, right? And you’re constantly checking on everything.

You’ve got your hands on everything that’s going on. And as you continue to grow, that’s not sustainable. You can’t do that. You don’t want to do that because you become the bottleneck for everything. But not everybody who’s a founder can continue to make the transition into a leader of a larger and larger organization.

Some people are really good at startup stuff, but they’re not good at the team building and the delegating and putting the structure in place. And these were things that you had to learn along the way. And I’m curious to hear, how did you learn those things? How did you make those transitions? Did you feel like they came naturally to you? Did you have to seek out coaches or mentors or classes that helped prepare you for this? Yes and yes.

Mark Maxfield: And I made some mistakes, of course, but it did in some ways become natural to me as I enjoyed the process. And I spent a lot of time, of course, reading. I’ve gone to classes. I’ve asked a lot of questions. And I’ve done a lot of thinking. Over in that corner of my office, I have my thinking chair, actually.

And I don’t take anything there, not my phone, not paperwork. It’s just thinking about where my bottlenecks are, as you mentioned, what is needed. And through that process, and it’s been decades, I have learned kind of what, I guess not perfect, what I’ve needed to do to get out of my own way to allow this building process, as you mentioned. Each, as we’ve grown, the homes that require the different leader, it requires different leadership structure. And that’s been probably one of the funnest parts of my job is seeing myself change and, more importantly, seeing my leaders change. And that’s probably where I get my most satisfaction is creating leaders. I got leaders in the coming out that are doing way more and doing it better than I did 15 years ago, when we were at that point. And that’s frankly where I receive my reward is taking people who never consider themselves as leaders and working with them like I had to do with myself. And as I watched my dad, and he’s long since retired, but helping them fulfill their goals and kind of reach the thought, tell them they didn’t think they could. It’s a lot of fun to watch that.

Anthony Codispoti: That sounds pretty cool. Mark, you know, a lot of growth happens from challenges that we endure and overcome. I’d be curious to hear about a particular challenge, whether it’s personal or professional, that you’ve gone through, how you got through that and some lessons that you learned.

Mark Maxfield: Yeah, there’s been lots of little ones, you know, maybe not real big monumental things, but early in my career, I just, my wife and I, we had two young kids, and any new startup requires a lot of time.

I was working a lot of hours. And so I’m just so grateful for my wife who understood. And she was the one taking care of things at home. And then she was one, and then we had two more kids, and as I watched them grow, I started to have this feeling of a lot of regret, you know, I’m missing football games, I’m missing dance recitals, what can I do? And so I had to learn to step away and trust leaders.

Hey, you got this meeting, my little girl has, you know, whatever it is, you feel in the blank soccer game. And I had to be okay with leaving for a couple hours and go into personal things, family things, and trust that the business isn’t going to fall apart. Anyone thinks the business is going to fall apart when they’re gone for two hours, needs to get out of their own head a little bit, and I learned that sometimes it was really good.

And so I had that own personal challenge of being okay with someone doing things that I used to do and spending time with my family because all my kids are going on gone now. Who would I be as a person? Who would I be as a leader if I didn’t, if I had terrible relationships with them, or if I was absent in that time? I can honestly say that I’ve done the best I could to do that. And now I have that satisfaction fulfillment now, which gives me the ability to continue to work hard now without regret. I made mistakes, no doubt about it.

Anthony Codispoti: Was it a gradual realization for you when your kids were younger, or was there kind of a light bulb moment where it was like, ah, got to change tomorrow?

Mark Maxfield: Yeah, it was a couple of light bulbs. When I realized I was abandoning my own personal things I wanted to do, I had to ask my wife again, did I run the washer?

Teach me again, how do I change this diaper? Just ridiculous things that every man should know how to do. And that’s when I’m like, okay, I need to be more present. And that sounds kind of silly, I guess, to admit, but those are things that I had to learn back when I was a young father and trying to do both, build a business and build a family.

Anthony Codispoti: Well, it’s exactly those kinds of things that we love to give voice to on this show. Things that are, at times, difficult to admit or talk about, and there’s going to be so many people who listen to this, they’re like, yeah, Mark, I’m the same way. I didn’t know how to change a diaper, right? I didn’t know where we kept the detergent. Yeah, thanks for giving voice to something that I was ashamed to admit.

Mark Maxfield: And thank you to a great wife who understood at the same time knew when to back off, knew when to push, knew when to raise the alarm, and understood the difference between all that. So a good support system at home is key to be able to do a business.

Anthony Codispoti: Amen to that. Mark, you often say that if you create a great environment for your team, you, in turn, create a great environment for your residents. Can you share a real-world specific example that shows how that kind of played out investing in that staff leadership and appreciation directly benefits the residents’ care? Oh.

Mark Maxfield: A specific example, and that’s hard because, well, honestly, there is no magic bullet.

Anthony Codispoti: It just kind of shows up every day and everything that goes on.

Mark Maxfield: Yeah, if there’s one magic bullet, I’d write a book about it, sell a million copies, and everybody would be doing it. It’s the little things every day, and knowing the difference between what’s important and what isn’t important. And so, no, I guess I don’t have one example. If you give me some time, I could think of probably 50 or 60 of them.

Anthony Codispoti: It’s just something that it seems like it just kind of permeates the culture. And so it just, it wasn’t sort of one big breakthrough thing. It’s just it shows up every day and every way.

Mark Maxfield: It’s just being fully present in every moment. You know, there’s many times when it’d be real easy to just be like, kind of roll your eyes and think, oh my gosh, this again, you know, I’ve already told her, you know, that’s such a stupid question. I don’t do that. I just look at them, what’s on your mind?

How can I help you? Even if it’s been the same thing before, and they don’t know you’ve dealt with that 100 times with other people. To them, this is their crisis. This is the moment. This is when they’re looking to you as a leader for an answer. And so, and I will say that’s one thing I think I’ve been very good at. Is this being fully present for every person, whether it’s a family member, a staff member, of course residents.

You know, if I’m sitting across the table or standing next to them, they know I’m, they’re the only person I’m thinking about in that moment. And it has been easy at times, but man has paid huge, huge dividends. And now it’s easy and plump because I see it that works. I had to learn that.

I don’t know what, but help me realize that unless I just, maybe I just do it naturally or just kind of learned over time what’s, what’s best. And I’ve paid, paid a lot of attention to things that work and things that don’t work. There are a lot of things that are in the trash can now. They didn’t work, but the good ones, and I keep them.

And now my leaders are doing those same things. I don’t have to. They’ve watched it. They’ve watched me and I’ve instructed it. And now they’re instructing their leaders how to do it. And they’re, they’re teaching. That’s been the magic of this company is just to see people become leaders. Now they’re leading leaders and those leaders are developing leaders in the home level and perpetuates.

Anthony Codispoti: So on and so forth. You know, in talking about, yeah, you know, you threw a lot of the things in the garbage, garbage can things that you tried and didn’t work out. And, you know, my experience are mistakes. What appear to be our mistakes in the moment end up becoming our greatest teachers.

Can you think of one of those things that you tried and it was like, oh, man, it didn’t work, but you know, ended up kind of fueling a better path for you. Ultimately. No, gosh, I knew you’re going to ask for one. Again, there’s been so many.

Mark Maxfield: I think a lot of it just been my focus, you know, and my focus on the financial and the financial. Yeah. And I got them right here. You have to look at the financials. Make sure that you’re running a business. But outside of that, what drives your business? What are some of the key, the key drivers in your business and I’ve outlined a formula and I teach that if you concentrate on this, this and this, you will be successful. Success in these areas right here.

We’ll cover up a lot of sins. It was bad work choice. A lot of mistakes over here. And so basically it’s just learning what things to focus on, not just financials, but in the day to day leadership. And so I just identify some key areas where this is where your attention needs to be. And if you do so, it works out.

Anthony Codispoti: So any particular daily practices or rituals that are helpful to you in setting your day right?

Mark Maxfield: Yes, I spend time on myself every morning. I, I rise at 430 in the morning. It is early that I have a 45 minute drive from my home in the town here. And I, I do my hardest things first thing in the morning. My very hardest thing that has been in my life has been my jujitsu.

I trained Brazilian jujitsu in the morning. You know, I’ll be 56 next month. So I’m rolling around with these 20 and 30 something guys and it’s hard. But I do it because it’s good for me mentally, of course physically and it’s learning a good skill. And I go from there and I do some workout or ride my bike, whatever. Come in the office, get cleaned up, get ready for the day. And I do the things I don’t want to do first, you know. And then the rest of the day goes great. And so I just really make sure that I get my day started right by doing those hard things that would be real easy to sleep in for, for a skip. And of course it’s helped me, helped me stay healthy, helped me stay strong and present. And I allow other people the same, same thing. Hopefully it’s a good example for them as well.

Anthony Codispoti: So the hard thing for you in the morning is the jujitsu with these guys that are half your age. You come into the office, there’s a space for you to get cleaned up there. And then you continue to start your day with or continue into your day with the hardest things in terms of like the work things that you have to do. Like, all right, where’s my list? Let’s let’s get to the hard one first. Yep.

Mark Maxfield: It’s that one email that you got two days ago that you know you need to answer. You haven’t done it yet. You know, it’s open here. It’s open on the other screen over here to remind you.

I got to get to that. It’s that phone call you don’t want to make. It’s that call with your banker, right, that you don’t not looking forward to. Oh, it’s different for everybody looking at the calendar, look at the schedule and just kind of deciding what it is. That’s what your day can look like, what you’re weak looking like. And I keep notes. I have a little thing over here at the end of the week. I have a color code that says a good medium or bad week. So I kind of know how to reschedule my week for the next. And then I have my thinking time as well.

Make sure I have my thinking time. Normally after lunch, I’m feeling kind of feeling good and relaxed and it just helps me focus on the rest of the day. And then when I go home, I’m happy rather than bummed out about things I still have left to do.

Anthony Codispoti: And so the thinking time, this happens after lunch. This happens in the chair that you described earlier. There’s no notebook. There’s no phone that goes with you. It’s just sort of quiet time. And are you going in there with something specific to think about? Is it more like a meditation where you’re trying to clear your mind or what’s the agenda?

Mark Maxfield: Yeah, sometimes there’s something very heavy on my mind. Something like you’re like, oh my gosh, you know, I’d like to get that two weeks of my life back. It’s time to think about it. Other times, not so much. There’s usually always something you can think about. It’s a very comfortable chair, you know, and sometimes I’ll even go to the office 15, 20 minutes.

And I had to learn how to not be guilty about that. You know, sometimes a little 15 minute exercise with yourself that ends up maybe you close your eyes and really get deep into it is okay because I have some pretty big, heavy things I need to do. If I get those problems solved, it enables my people to have the resources and tools they need to do their job. If there’s some things I don’t do and get taken care of here, it’s going to manifest itself down to the ranks below. So I just have to learn how to be okay with just thinking and come under the terms with some heavy stuff with just myself.

Anthony Codispoti: What’s the best decision you’ve made for your company?

Mark Maxfield: Well, that’s easy. I hire a company president. I was, you know, as I worked up, you know, I was operations manager, then director of operations and chief operations officer. And then dad left, I was able to buy him out. I was president and CEO. I’m very proud of that.

I’m an operator and I run this company. I look at the great job I’m doing and I was. I was doing okay. In the meantime, I had somebody that had been with me for 15 years that just day in, day out was just getting stuff done, helping me do things, making me look better than I was, frankly. I’m like, you know what, if I really care about culture, if I really care about growth and make sure this company has ran properly, I can’t do both. And so I just pulled her aside one day and I said, I said, Jamie, you know what you’re doing. There’s things I need to work on the only I can do, but I can’t if I’m in the day to day as much as I am. I’m in the weeds. And she said, I got this.

And from that very next day, she took off London. My job is to stay out of the way, frankly. And she is doing better than I did as president. And I tell her that and I tell everyone else who will listen to me at two. So when they look at her, they see her as the, I don’t want people coming to me as the boss with these problems about this.

They go to her one, because she probably knows how to deal with it better anyway. And I’m able to work, focus on these higher issues that really need my time and attention that I as the owner and CEO need to work on. Frease up my time, freeze up her time, very clear line of authority, who does what.

And so they go to her for a lot of things as they should because she’s the one taking care of it. So when I hired a company president, I realized that there’s people out there that know what they’re doing, made my life so much better. And my culture has gotten better. My growth has been faster and better since then. I’m happier. She’s happier because she’s able to play in this space that she probably wanted to anyway for a while and was doing well and make more money for her. And the company is then more profitable. I can’t really think any negatives about it unless someone has an ego once both titles. I’d be the only negative. And I tell me about two days to get over that.

Anthony Codispoti: Tip of the hat to you because that’s, yeah, I mean, it goes to what you were saying before about trying to hire people that are better and smarter than you for the roles that they’re filling.

Mark Maxfield: And then get out of their way.

Anthony Codispoti: Get out of their way and it clears out headspace for you to be able to do the things that you’re better at and that you need to focus on.

Mark Maxfield: Yeah, my thinking time, my exercise time, you know, I don’t, there’s some days I just, I don’t make it in here anymore. Sometimes it’s nine, nine thirty because I’m just in a real groove at the gym or on my bike ride. And of course I’m thinking about work stuff. So it’s my thinking time on my bike, for instance, and you have to be okay with riding your bike on the green belt for an extra hour and you’re not the office.

I used to identify myself how many hours I could put in on the first one there and the last one to leave. Yeah, so what, you know, how effective are you? Are you doing the right things? Are you making the right decisions? And I’m better at that now because I have got myself that flexibility to be where I need to be. I hope that makes sense. I don’t know.

Anthony Codispoti: Makes a lot of sense. I mean, I think there’s a lot of entrepreneurs. I’ve certainly found myself guilty of this where I don’t know, it’s like we’re competing for this invisible trophy of, right? How many hours did I work? How hard did I work? How stressed did I get? You know, like, yeah, nobody’s handing out a medal for that.

Mark Maxfield: No, nobody’s in cares. No, nobody’s impressed, particularly your family and wife back home. And so what are you going to do? Yeah, figure it out.

Anthony Codispoti: Yeah. Mark, is there a particular book, a podcast, a course that’s been really helpful for you and your development that might be good to recommend to our listeners?

Mark Maxfield: Well, I got, I got many here that I’m done. This is a good one right here. Here’s another good one. Crucial conversations. This is one that I read called leadership isn’t for cowards. My, Mike Staber, it’s a pretty simple read, frankly, but it’s become my textbook to teach other leaders. I’ve done a lot of things to help me and my leadership and this book helped me as well. But I use this book for my once a month leadership meeting for all inspiring leaders in my company. They come here to the home office and they just get their own book and we go through it like a textbook and have several, four hours of training. And like I mentioned earlier, my success as a company has come from taking people and building them to the leader they want to do. So this is one of the, one of the tools I use and it’s been a lot of fun.

Anthony Codispoti: What’s one big lesson that you can teach us from that book?

Mark Maxfield: You have to make the hard call sometime. The title is appropriate. Leadership isn’t for cowards because you have to realize that as the boss, as a leader, you’re screwing up people’s lives. You’re telling them sometimes things they need to do they don’t want to do. You’re responsible for what they make or the performance evaluations for, you know, people spend more time at work than they do at anything other single activity in their life. Maybe except for, you know, sitting at home and so you have a lot of authority and influence over them and you can make life pretty miserable for them or good and it’s your choice. And once I learned that I had the opportunity to make life better for them, this may be a better leader.

Anthony Codispoti: Mark, what’s something that you wish more people knew about your industry? Well, it’s not going away.

Mark Maxfield: In fact, it’s growing. The silver tsunami, you’ve heard that, right? I mean, I think it’s next year the oldest baby boomer turns 80 and that’s when they start coming my direction. So for the next 25 or whatever years we’re having just a massive amount of people that are going to be needing assistive services. And the challenge will be will there be access enough for all of them, particularly in rural communities? Will they be able to afford it? Will we have the staff available to take care of them?

That’s always constantly on my mind is making sure that we have opportunities and places for seniors to go. And there’s a need for it. And I really want people to understand that there’s a lot of opportunities for it. It’s a field or an industry that a lot of people maybe don’t think about. No one really thinks about assistive living until they have a mom or a dad that needs it or a grandparent or they themselves. And so I would hope people consider it as a career track for someone.

They can start as young as their 18 as a caregiver and work their way up and really get some good skills and have a good career in this field, whether it’s assistive living or skilled nursing. I really hope people remember and they will remember as society is getting older, they’ll definitely become more a topic of conversation.

Anthony Codispoti: I’m glad that we touched on this because there’s a lot of fear about, especially with AI coming into play, what are the future jobs going to look like? Maybe I’m a younger person, maybe even in the middle of my career and thinking about a career change and where can I go, we’re going to have some job security. And it seems like senior care, as you said, it’s not going away, it’s becoming bigger.

In all likelihood, we’re going to have a shortage of care providers. And so for people who are looking for a good, safe career path, it seems to me that this would be something that they would want to choose. And particularly as I hear you talk about how you like to help people inside your organization with personal development.

So they come in and they’re kind of a frontline care provider and there are opportunities for them to, if they choose to, to advance their career into positions of leadership.

Mark Maxfield: Yeah, we’re sort of, AI is going to be wonderful and it’s going to do a lot of great things for people. You know, we’re already starting to see some of the benefits you’re going to assist living with. You know, note taking is for documentation for on the clinical side and things, but until they build a robot, I guess, AI is not going to give your mother a shower or help her take her meds. It’ll help us document and record it quicker, but we’re always going to require that personal touch, that face-to-face human interaction. It’s going to be a while before I think AI replaces that, so there’s always going to be a need for good people that like to connect with people, that have big hearts. And so I think we’ll just see the benefits of AI in the industry for a while. I think it’ll be a while before it replaces people.

Anthony Codispoti: Are you already using AI to help with some of the note taking and other sort of, I don’t know, more mundane tasks like that?

Mark Maxfield: Yeah, we’re just starting to do that. Just going to be switching CRM platforms so to kind of help replicate some of the documentation that we’re doing. It’s making it quicker, easier.

I’ve already seen some white people use it with some of their emails and they have these long detailed emails. I can tell they use an AI to kind of help formulate some of those things, which is fine. Just a few things, particularly in our software management that we use for our resident documentation. As far as their cares, their medication, some of those things, it’s really going to, I think, revolutionize the industry in that regard. It’s far as time-saving.

Anthony Codispoti: And then giving the care providers more time to spend with the people who need their time. Less time with keyboard or less time with pen and paper and more time with the human beings that need their support.

Mark Maxfield: Less time with the computer, more time with the bedside. That’s always going to be the same.

Anthony Codispoti: Mark, I’ve just got one more question for you. But before I ask it, I want to do two things. First of all, everyone listening today, I know that you like today’s content. Mark’s been a great guest, shared a lot of wonderful stories. Please hit the follow or a subscribe button on your favorite podcast app so you continue to get great content like this. Mark, I also want to let people know the best way to either get in touch with you or to continue to follow the cottages or your story. What would that be?

Mark Maxfield: Yeah, I welcome anyone to reach out. Obviously, my website, www.thecottages .biz. You can look me up on LinkedIn, Mark Maxfield. I’ll get my email, mark at the cottages.biz.

Anthony Codispoti: Terrific. Lots of ways to reach out to Mark there. So last question for you, Mark. As you look towards the future, what’s the biggest thing that has you excited about this space? What are you excited about that’s coming around the corner?

Mark Maxfield: Well, it used to be that all the problems and things, not problems, issues, concerns kept me up at night. Now I realize it’s about what gets me up in the morning.

You know, what gets me up in the morning is really thinking about all the lies that I get in touch every day. It’s the families, it’s the staff as I mentioned. That’s really my passion, working with staff and helping them.

And of course, my residents and there’s going to be a lot more coming. So my job has been to find smart growth. The challenge, of course, is financing and finding land. But it’s building this company that people, well, building the team that’s built this company that’s been great. So your question of what’s coming that excites me? I mean, I’ve been excited for 20 years and so it’s just doing more of this. As I tell my team, you know, what got us here, it’s not going to get us there, wherever there is. But because we made it here, I know we’ll make it there. So it’s just been learning what needs to change, what needs to shift, working with my team and together just being able to adapt with the industry, which has certainly changed over the past quarter of a century.

Anthony Codispoti: Well, I liked what you just said. It used to be about what keeps me up at night. Now it’s, my focus is more on what gets me up in the morning. And it’s not like the things that kept you up at night had suddenly gone away. You know, it’s not like there aren’t any problems in the business.

As the business grows, you’ve got more opportunities for more problems. But I think what I hear you saying is it’s more about where you’re putting your attention. Do you want to grind, you want your mental gears to grind away at night on those things that need to be solved, problems that are coming up, issues that need to be resolved? Or do you want to, you know, turn your attention to, ah, what’s going to, what’s, what am I excited about? What’s the fun thing that is going to help me hop out of bed in the morning? Am I hearing you right?

Mark Maxfield: That’s right. And those same concerns that supposedly keep you up at night are now the exciting things that I get to deal with in the morning, because I’ve learned how to think, how to, how to work with them. So there’s not problems anymore. There are challenges and there’s nothing more satisfying than seeing a challenge, kicking his butt, learning from it, and then just applying that to the next challenge and just building and growing. And I have the most fun when I’m sitting in meetings with my leadership team and I just sit back and I just hear him talk back and forth about issues. And we used to do a lot of talking and I do a lot of listening and nodding and great job and just kind of challenge a little bit.

Okay, very good. Now what are we going to do with that? And then see the conversation build and flow again.

It’s just sometimes it brings tears to my eyes, actually just seeing the way that, again, these people that never envision themselves as leaders solving problems for their company, their company.

Anthony Codispoti: That’s a great way to wrap it up. Mark, I want to be the first one to thank you for sharing both your time and your story with us today. I really appreciate it.

Mark Maxfield: Thank you, sir. It’s been an honor. Appreciate it.

Anthony Codispoti: Folks, that’s a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories Podcast. Thanks for learning with us today.