The Magnificent One's
The Magnificent One’s Podcast is a society, culture, and philosophy podcast for those navigating real life in a complex world.
Each episode explores the questions many people are quietly asking—but few are answering honestly. From marriage, friendships, finances, politics, and mental health to identity, purpose, and modern masculinity, this podcast creates space for thoughtful conversations that challenge assumptions and encourage growth.
Blending philosophy, cultural commentary, and practical insight, we break down big ideas into real-world wisdom you can actually apply. Through reflective solo episodes and meaningful conversations, we examine how personal choices intersect with culture, relationships, and the systems shaping our everyday lives.
This podcast isn’t about quick fixes or surface-level motivation. It’s about clarity, depth, and intentional living—helping listeners develop emotional intelligence, strengthen relationships, improve mindset, and move through life with confidence and conviction.
If you’re part of Gen Z or the Millennial generation, questioning traditional narratives, redefining success, or seeking a more grounded, thoughtful approach to life, The Magnificent One’s Podcast is for you.
“Real conversations about life, culture, and becoming your best self—without the noise.”
The Magnificent One's
Zack Demopoulos: Your Boss Might Be The Difference Between Burnout And Bedtime Stories
Caregiving doesn’t knock first. One call, one diagnosis, and your world tilts—projects, paychecks, and family responsibilities colliding overnight. We sat down with Zach to unpack a simple, hard-earned framework for navigating the chaos and to ask a bigger question: how do we build workplaces where no one has to choose between their job and the person they love?
Zach breaks down the three Ps—plan, provisions, people—born from his first chaotic experience after his father’s stroke and refined while caring for his mother. Planning means mapping the journey before crisis hits. Provisions are the practical tools: finances, legal documents, vetted local resources, and trusted education. People is the tribe that keeps you sane. He also shares why corporate life rarely prepares us for this, and why peer communities like Working Daughters can be more useful than a generic EAP list. The fix starts with empathy: managers who open one-on-ones with “What hard thing are you dealing with this week?” create safety, not suspicion.
We connect the human story to the business case. Retention risks spike when senior leaders—especially women—face rigid policies and unspoken penalties for taking time. The cost isn’t just hiring; it’s lost client trust, institutional knowledge, and culture. There’s hope, though. Paid parental leave showed that policy plus empathy boosts performance and loyalty. Extending that mindset to eldercare and disability care is the next leap. Zach and his partner Selma built on this mission with their book, Working Caregivers: The Invisible Employees, a podcast, and a newsletter that curates research, tools, and raw stories, including a caregiver who started at ten.
If you’re a leader, manager, or caregiver navigating impossible tradeoffs, this conversation offers language, steps, and validation. Subscribe, share with someone who needs it, and leave a review with one change your workplace could make to support caregivers—what would move the needle for you?
Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Take a breath. Let's dive in. Is it green? Yeah, we're green. We're ready to go. No. We're keeping it in. Let's do it, brother. All right. You know, you describe yourself as an experienced caregiver. Now, what does that phrase mean to you and why is it that lived experience is so critical to this space?
SPEAKER_03:All right. So the best way to describe it and first of all, oh, thank you, Olby, for uh for having this conversation with me. It means a lot to me. The more we can talk about these, have these conversations about uh what I think is a caregiver crisis in this country, the better off we're gonna be and do something about it. So I really appreciate you. I really do. Um so the best way to define what an experienced caregiver is, is to tell you what one is not. And that's somebody who is totally caught with their pants down, usually involuntarily have been assigned a caregiver role because their parent, their spouse, someone's had an event, whether it's uh a fall or a heart attack or a diagnosis. And they're completely unprepared, both physically, mentally, emotionally, and financially. Experience really means that you actually are in the thick of it. Baptismal by fire. There isn't really a guidebook out there. I wish there was, but unfortunately, every single caregiver role is different. And the reason why it's different is because every family has its different dynamics, whether it's economic, whether it's societal, cultural. So there's no cookie-cutter approach. But for someone who has lived experience like myself, what I'm able to do, though, is at least approach it in a reasonable manner to minimize the stress that ultimately will occur. And I call it the three P's. That's what my experience has taught me. The three Ps. The first P is you must plan. So, Uncle, you may ask you a question. Would you ever go on a trip without ever looking at some sort of internet or call a travel agent, or you're not just gonna go to the airport and jump on a plane, right? No, I definitely would not do that. Right. So P is plan. You've got to plan for a journey. All right. And then the second P is provisions. So you're not just gonna show up, get out of your car, go to the airport with no suitcase, no money, and try to get on a plane and go on a journey, right? So provisions are really important on a journey, meaning education, knowledge, resources, finances, legal support, um, uh resources that are in the community. So those are all very important things that you must prepare for. And I'm able to handle that pretty well now because I've experienced caregiving. Uh I experienced my first caregiver role with my father who had a stroke in 2006. I was the unexperienced caregiver then, caught with my pass down, didn't know a thing, didn't know what to do. Now that I care for my mother the second go-round, I'm really experienced. Am I still making mistakes and still stressing out? Absolutely, but not as much. And the third P the third P is probably the most important. That's people. So you've got to identify who's going to be your tribe, who is going to be there for you on this journey, because guess what? You can't do this alone.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. Yeah, something I thought was very fascinating. And after we, you know, we met, I've always been a fan of economics, seeing where the future is going, and looking at the crisis that you described. We have an aging population and we don't have an infrastructure planning. You talk about T planning for that eventuality. Like who's going to care for the aging population? How are we, you know, uh influencing policies to prepare us for the future? And so that led me down a research, you know, rabbit hole that I started looking at psychology. And even when, in certain situations, like you've described, that everyone's situation is different. There's, you know, country, you know, uh culturally it could be different, financially, you know, it could be different. And even in instances where an individual can pay or afford care, sometimes the the heart isn't there. Like the the emotion isn't there. And uh the guilt that some people you know find when they have to outsource because they they work in a corporate environment. Yes. They have the the money for care, but they don't necessarily have the time for care. The guilt that's associated with taking time off, and you're, you know, telling your your your your your CEO, hey, listen, I have to go see my mom or see my dad or my child, and they they look at you as if you've done something wrong, or they make you feel guilty.
SPEAKER_02:Yes.
SPEAKER_00:And you know, they make you know that's that's a dilemma that a lot of people still face today.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So how how has your experience in the corporate world um prepared you for things like this?
SPEAKER_03:Well, I don't want to disappoint you, but I can't really say that my experiences in the corporate world prepared me for a caregiver journey. So I'm sorry to disappoint you. What I will tell you has prepared me is actually values in my family, um, understanding finances from a young age, meeting my grandparents, understanding the value and respect that they deserve, conversations with so many other people that have been in the trenches. I get probably my best valued education by when I join a private family, uh sorry, a private Facebook group called Working Daughters. There's 10,000 women and Zach and a few other men in this group. And when I go onto that private Facebook Facebook group, I can read posts, and there's a good chance I will find somebody who's going through exactly what I'm going through, and they will talk about it. Or I could ask the question and the people will respond to it. Um in order for a corporate experience to be able to help you, they've got to be able to understand what you're even going through. Nobody talks about this in the workplace. Yes. And so it is a big challenge, and that's why it is part of the caregiver crisis. Now, look, it doesn't all fall on the employer's shoulders. I mean, it's society, it's it's our government, it's our own individual responsibility, right? But I would say that when I first got that phone call from my brother to say my dad had a stroke, I didn't know what to do, but somebody at work said, Zach, aren't you an HR? I go, yeah. Well, why don't you call EAP? So I'm like, The irony. The irony, right? Yeah, really ironic. And I'm like, you know what? Yes. But guess what, Oakley? And this is 2006. When I called EAP, they really couldn't help me with it except to give me a list of home care agencies in Charlotte, North Carolina. And all I did was pick the first one on the top of the list and called them. They asked for my credit card, two weeks non-refundable. And I never met them, did it all over the phone, and my mother fired them on the second day because we just had not had a good discussion about expectations. And I did not have a list of questions I should be asking at home care. So I think that the corporate world has a great opportunity to do exactly what you asked. But we're not there yet. I agree.
SPEAKER_00:I agree. And I and I and I've seen that.
SPEAKER_01:Is that a trick question then?
SPEAKER_00:No, not at all. I I do agree. I'll say something that I that my generation got to experience that has been beneficial. When my first child was born, I immediately went back to work. I I took the week off, went straight back to work, and that did not make my wife happy. Right. This this the the second go-around, child number two, there's this thing called paid parental leave. So either spouse or significant other can now take time off to, you know, whether you're you're doing a childhood, uh child adoption or foster care or mute new births and and what have you. And my wife was happy. Yes. Because we got to spend time together, bond together, and that wasn't around the first go-around. Second go-around was much smoother. There was less friction because I could be a caregiver because the infrastructure allowed for it.
SPEAKER_03:Yes.
SPEAKER_00:You know, and and that's something that I I don't take for granted.
SPEAKER_03:Oakley, yeah, I was in HR in the early 90s. And I would tell you there was a time when that was never even thought of to help a father, a new father, uh take time off to support his spouse, his significant other, uh, or her significant other, and um, and and have uh raise that child for the first few weeks or months. Um and I will tell you also that there were horror stories of women leaving to take that pay time off, but then having negative consequences as a result of. Yes. Let's say, for example, they were on the talent planning list, they were on the fast track. And believe it or not, whether it was said out loud, there was bias there.
SPEAKER_01:Yes.
SPEAKER_03:They were basically mentally taking off that fast track. Oh, they're having a child. Oh, they're already starting to take time off. Thank goodness, we've come a long way since then. We still have some some pockets of issues there. But when it comes to new parents or childbirth or adoption, I have to say kudos to organizations. They've done a, they've come a long way. That's when I'm hoping we're gonna do the same for elder care or children with adult children with disabilities.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, something that that I I uh I think is profound. You know, uh I I love looking at not just people's bios, but I I love seeing how the the the titles they attach themselves. That's very fascinating to me. And analyzing your work and seeing how impactful it is, and having experienced certain things that I see the relevance of your work. For example, like inclusion in the workplace. Having females in leadership in the corporate world that have had kids, and they're they they're married, and uh there's certain things that they're now bringing that experience so that the younger generation doesn't have to experience the same things that they experience.
SPEAKER_01:Yes.
SPEAKER_00:Perfect example. There was a routine uh uh doctor's visit for my wife, and my boss comes to me one day and was like, hey, you know you can just you can go be with your wife, right?
SPEAKER_03:Love your boss.
SPEAKER_00:I love your boss. Right? Like my wife didn't need me to be there, but the fact that I I just left work, showed up, had her appointment, because Can I ask you a question?
SPEAKER_03:Yes, absolutely. I know you're the host here, but I gotta ask you, how did your m boss even know that? She took the time to to note how did your boss know that you were ha your wife is going on a doctor's appointment to even say that to you?
SPEAKER_00:Just the check-ins, you know, like check-ins with with the other managers.
SPEAKER_03:And you shared it.
SPEAKER_00:Yes.
SPEAKER_03:So there in itself is where we're trying to get to. There's a connection. Where the one-on-one conversations could go more like this. Yes. And this is called empathy.
SPEAKER_01:Yes.
SPEAKER_03:Now everybody wants to know what is this big trending word empathy all about? And I'll give an example. And I have to give credit to my good friend in Toronto, Antonio Savalas, who is an empathy leader, and he taught me this. He said, Look, in your 101s, it's actually let me ask you, what's a typical first question in a 101? Come on.
SPEAKER_00:Quick. Just what's on a typical question in a 101. Uh, here we are. Where are you at with this project?
SPEAKER_03:Right. Just right away. It goes right to work. All right. Well, let's try something even more generic. How's it going? You're still thinking work. He wants to know, or she wants to know, where am I doing on my deadlines? How am I doing with my clients, right? Yes. Okay, scratch that. How about this for first question? Are you ready?
SPEAKER_01:Yes.
SPEAKER_03:Hey, Oakland. Tell me something that is probably going to be quite difficult. You're going to have to deal with this week.
SPEAKER_00:That's a beautiful question. She did do that. She did more than that. I remember when I was a great boss, by the way. When I began working with her years ago, first thing, she was like, listen, I'm not going to talk to you. I want you to just get time to know everyone, know the team. And uh from there, she devoted two hours for us to just talk to each other as people, get to know each other, uh, what we like, what sports team we love, you know, and all just knowing each other as people. And then she said something very profound to me. She said, people don't care about how much you know until they know how much you care. That's right. And from there, like we like the synergy that that created and and and the culture, because now I took that back to my team and was able to replicate that because there's a mirroring effect, right? If at the top everyone is being empathetic, as you've said, and then at the bottom everyone's also being empathetic, you then you're gonna have high morale, you're gonna have a great place to work, you're gonna have uh an environment where people matter. You're not you're not just a number, you matter.
SPEAKER_02:Yes.
SPEAKER_00:And when people feel that they matter, guess what? The productivity also goes up.
SPEAKER_03:Right. And when you've created a culture like that, imagine this talking about mirroring or role modeling. How about a senior leader who gets up and talks about their caregivering experience and their challenges? And all of a sudden, all the direct reports under that leader are all of a sudden saying, wow, we're not alone. And wow.
SPEAKER_00:I think I'm comfortable taking and actually bringing this up to them now. They're human. You know, I think that's the thing, that the human connection. Sometimes we look at people as their positions and we don't look at them as the person.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And that takes away from their can the the possible things they could contribute because we're not um creating the culture of inclusion, the culture of just sharing the human story. Because at the end of the day, whatever our experiences are in the corporate world, it's not as though we clock out, and if someone insulted us while we were on the clock, we just forget it the moment we clock out. Like we're people. And we take things with us to the ones we love. And so we could either take positive things to them or we could take negative things to them. It's it's not just you don't just check that at the door because we don't operate like that. We don't have an on-and-off switch. And so that's something that I've I've uh come to love. And in my managerial journey, I've I've tried to always be mindful of that, that everyone has someone or something to go home to.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And I don't want to be the negative thing that they take home with them.
SPEAKER_03:Yes. You know? Absolutely. And if I can bring what you just talked about to a head as to why this is a crisis, when you look at roles in an organization, who's getting impacted the most, believe it or not, it's not the entry levels, because they can't afford to leave their job and care for somebody. They've got to figure it out. Get a family member, get a neighbor, you know. Now, your more senior roles, women especially, will blink. They will leave their jobs if they're not getting the flexibility and feel like the support they need at work. And let me tell you what, and I know I don't need to tell you this, how costly of a turnover that more senior role is to an organization. You can't teach experience. It's there's a ton of evidence out there. We had a guest recently from Harvard, and he shared some uh some research with us. Uh so that so this isn't just anecdotal. There's actually research that's proven and shown the bottom line is hit. Not that that should be the only reason why we're doing this, but it is one of the reasons.
SPEAKER_00:No, of course. You've taken a prominent figure that has that that there's the uh I look at like it's like a car, right? A car has an engine, has a transmission, has wheels, and the the ultimate goal of the car is to get somewhere. You take out the engine, you take out the transmission, you take off a wheel off the car, the car can't do its function, right? It can't go where it needs to go. And if the goal is to make money and you don't have the experience there to take us to where we need to go, then all of that stops.
SPEAKER_03:Yes. Yes.
SPEAKER_00:So I I uh I can definitely say that there have been times where there have been turnovers that it takes quite a few years to fill that void. You know, whether whether they're the glue of the company or the glue of a division, the glue of a division, it's not just their output or the fact that they're the most productive or the fact that they have the highest sales increases or things of that nature, that their Q1's always the best. It's the fact that they've integrated themselves so well with their people, they're so in tune that the success that they bring isn't just, hey, I tell people what to do. It's that they're connected to the financial aspect of the business and the people aspects of the business as well.
SPEAKER_03:Without a doubt. I mean, it's it's when that wheel falls off or that engine quits working, um think about it. The long term impact is, like you just say, is tremendous. If you think about uh a particular leader who uh has relationships both internally and externally with clients, has An incredible asset, which we call intelligence, that she or he will take with them. And the fact that you're going to have to spend quite a bit to try to come even close to replacing them. And even when you do replace them, it will take them a while to get up to speed. It's extremely costly. And then more importantly, the impact it has on the culture because word spreads.
SPEAKER_01:Yes.
SPEAKER_03:And they're going to want to know why did so-and-so leave. And it eventually will get out. Yes. And that will impact way more than you could even imagine.
SPEAKER_00:Yes. And then the replacement has to, they're the face. They're the face. So they get to have not the slander is a strong word, but they they feel the brunt of that as well. Sure. Because everything that they're on a microscope under a microscope, they're compared. You know, if they're if they're if they're newly appointed to their position, everything they do is wrong. Even if their their intent is good, that's not the outcome.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:There's always the backlash. They don't have the trust that the uh the the former had. And that that's always devastating to see that sometimes good people definitely suffer because of things like that.
SPEAKER_03:My dream, Oakley, my partner and I, rather. Yes. Selma Archer, my partner and I. Yes. Our dream, our purpose, our mission, our our vision is to create a work environment where nobody, nobody has to decide between their job and having to care for someone important to them in their life. That's our vision.
SPEAKER_00:That's quality of life. That's culture. You know, and and and Zach, I just I want to say thank you for the work that you do and bringing meaning to people's lives, including mine. You're definitely a value add. And you know, and uh in your acts of kindness, it's not just in in the things that you do, but it's the things that you you post, and that your work is it does not go unseen. And um it's been a tremendous asset to not only myself, but to quite a few people in my in my in my personal life. I I I assure you that.
SPEAKER_03:I sincerely appreciate Oakley. Uh I I don't necessarily look for compliments, um but what I do look for is some validation. Because that gives me the inspiration to continue. Listen, man, I'm 63 years old, and and uh I uh I really want to go go out of this life knowing that we made a difference and we we figured out that this is the the thing to do right now. And the fact that you share that and the fact that you're reading our posts, the fact that you even invited me to have this conversation with you, um just validates that we're somewhere on the right track. I appreciate you.
SPEAKER_00:More than that, you know, and just to uh to just bring it on, bring it home. There was this thing, this newsletter. You might have been familiar, maybe it was a part of your life, this newsletter or what have you, um that the pandemic happened, and somehow this newsletter just was able to help a lot of people in the in in in in the corporate world.
SPEAKER_03:I'm not familiar with it. I I don't know, you tell you telling the people about the newsletter. You're talking about a my newsletter. Yes. Yes, yes. You're uh you're too kind, my man. You're too kind. Uh Selma and I, well, well, so just real quick, um Selma and I created this this vision. Uh she and I worked together in corporate. She was in legal, I was in HR, and we would always cross paths and work together. And then we kind of lost touch for 10 years. And she finds me on LinkedIn and reached out. And I'm like, oh my goodness, Selma, let's get on the phone and talk. And that morning, I was in my car ready to go into the building, my office, and she was out. She runs like a half a marathon every morning. She's in California, I'm in New Jersey. I'm not kidding. Oh boy, I was in my car running that gas, idle, running idle for two hours while she was running. And we talked about our caregiver journeys, and we had no idea what each of us went through while we were working. We were both going through some pretty heavy-duty caregiver stuff. And so when we talked about it, we're like, you know what? We should really do something about it. Let's write a book. So we started writing a book, and then we said, you know what? I think can you share the name of the book, please? Sure. Working caregivers, the invisible employees. And caregivers in this context is unpaid family members. Um, and the care recipient could be anybody, from 18 and older, adult child with, you know, can't can no longer live independently, to a spouse, a sibling, a friend, a neighbor, uh, it could be a grandparent, it could be anything. So um, so we wrote the book. We said, let's, let's, let's, uh, let's maybe do something about this. We create a podcast under the same name. Um we uh create a website and we created a newsletter.
SPEAKER_01:Yes.
SPEAKER_03:And we're really excited about the newsletter. So thank you for uh shouting that out because in the newsletter we've got to break it up to a quick, easy read. We have two news articles of Revelence. Revelence. Thank you. And um we have a blog which Selma writes 99% of them. He's an incredible writer. And um we have the podcast of the of the week that we we produce every two weeks, and then we have a great section that's called Stories from Real Working Caregivers. And we are just honored by the people that are willing to meet with us and share their stories. We've interviewed over 35 people so far, and they're all different. Yes, I've noticed that from different backgrounds. One of the one that I am most proud of is uh uh Marion Callaway, who's 21 years old, and he shared his caregiver story that started at 10. Yeah. And it brought tears to me to interview him and to share his story. Um so the newsletter uh we hope brings value. Uh at the end of the newsletter, we also give three pieces of media that you can connect with a podcast, a book, or a video. We try to make it interesting and we try to make a theme out of it. Um, and we're we're really we're really excited about the response. Again, validation is important to us. Uh, because you know, Selma and I are very passionate about this. We want to make sure that it's gonna bring value. And uh people like you, uh or anyone I bring up, what we're doing, always has another story to share or gives us some type of validation, and that really gives us energy to continue this project.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, thank you. I mean, uh it's been a great honor. I really, really uh I'll say that I'm blessed to have met you and to just have you a part of my life. And uh I definitely see you as a mentor, and I appreciate all the value that you've added to my life, so thank you. And my wife thanks you too. She's very excited that we're we're uh we're hanging out right now.
SPEAKER_03:Well, I appreciate that. Listen, I uh you know we're currently here at Podfest at the Renaissance Hotel Orlando at SeaWorld. Uh this is my 10th year coming to this event. This is your third year. Uh Oakley, you and I met two years ago, and it was kind of by accident. It was definitely. We just talked about it before we hit record. And um I'm I'm just I don't think there's anything as accidents.
SPEAKER_01:Yes.
SPEAKER_03:Except the ones that happen on the highway. Yes. But I uh I believe in fate. Uh I'm really uh appreciative of a person like you and my life. We probably only talk once or twice a year, but it doesn't really matter. But I really, really respect what you're doing, the conversations you're trying to have. And um, I asked you what you want to get out of this conversation, and I love what you said, and gotta be honest with you, I'm feeling really good right now. All right, all right.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I hope you are too. I definitely am. I definitely am. Thank you, Zach. All right, brother. If you enjoyed today's content, please like and subscribe for more.