"How Did You Get Started in Senior Living?" Part 1: Lisa Rogers

As a 16-year-old girl working for her dad's restaurant as a waitress, Lisa Rogers was cashing tips that no waitress before her had ever seen. The combination of her contagious smile and charming rhetoric made a 20% tip seem like a steal to the restaurant's customers. The other waitresses began to take notice of 16-year-old Lisa doubling up their tips each night.

Rather than try to learn from the younger prodigy waitress, they did the opposite... they teamed up, marched into the boss's office, and said the classic line, "It's either us or her, but someone has to go! It's not fair!"

And in the blink of an eye, 16-year-old Lisa was jobless. Her dad knew she would succeed anywhere in life, but at this point in time to Lisa, it was devastating. After a few weeks, she went from pulling in a couple hundred dollars a night to a $3/hour job... but little did she know, that $3/hour job was the beginning of something special.

This short-term setback introduced Lisa to a lifelong mission: loving, caring, and helping older adults thrive in their later years. Yes, the $3/hour job Lisa fell into after losing her job as a waitress introduced her to an industry that she hasn't left since: Senior Living.

Lisa's story is a reminder that we can't focus on what the future pages say in our book. All we can do is focus on being the best in whatever role we are currently in and treating everyone with respect and love. If we do this, the future pages and chapters to our book will write themselves.

I heard a speaker once say, "Suffering isn't an obstacle to be used by God, it's an opportunity to be used like never before."

For Lisa, she may have never been introduced to senior living without the setback as a 16-year-old girl. Today, there are thousands of people thankful for Lisa finding that $3/hour job at a local nursing home years ago, and because her work, like many other senior living leaders, thousands of families across the country are given a community where their grandmother or grandfather, mom or dad, can thrive in their final chapter of life.

Lisa is now the President & Chief Clinical Officer at Distinctive Living, a 3rd party management company intended to promote the success of senior living projects by focusing on quality of care for residents and enhancing a work/life balance for our team-members. Her and her partners launched Distinctive Living early in 2021 and are growing rapidly around the country.

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This story is intended to shine a light on what makes Senior Living unique: our stories. Everyone has a story to tell and listening to these stories is my favorite part of the job. The goal of sharing these is to promote the incredible work people are doing in the industry as well as help change the public's perception of senior living.

I'd love to hear your story. Message me on LinkedIn or email me at [email protected].