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It's it's just fascinating to me the resiliency that people had.
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Seventy five percent of the people that we talked to
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grew up with no power, with no election, you know,
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no electricity half the time, no running water, bathrooms outside
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of it's a rural area. And the one thing they
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all have in common is nobody complained that. There's not
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one iota of complaining about So I mean my tolerance,
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this is like my tolerance level of young people complaining
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about stuff is extremely low. Shallow. Yeah, yeah, so.
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It Hello everyone, this is Ron Roell, the host of
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forty five Forward. They all love good storytellers, and the
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best storytellers are the ones with the most to tell.
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American seniors who have already lived long lives, but our
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older generations often don't get a chance to tell their stories.
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In fact, they're not even asked. In today's episode, I'll
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be talking with Jack Yorke, whose mission is to change
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all that. Jack has been immersed in the senior living
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world for more than twenty five years, and he is
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the founder and chief storyteller of Tailgate Now. He spends
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his days crisscrossing the country capturing the amazing often untold
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personal stories of seniors, including those of our oldest old
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one hundred year olds, our nation centenarians, through a project
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he calls Vintage Voices. The story of Jack and Tailgate
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is in a more amazing, heartfelt story in itself, and
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today I'm privileged to share this story with you. So
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now let's meet jack yorke Jack. Welcome to the show.
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All right, thanks Ron for having me on. I love
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your whole tagline of making the second half of life
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better than the first. That's that's awesome.
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Yeah, and you've done that. You've had multiple parts of
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your life, so let's start with that a little bit. Jackson,
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give us well. During the course of the of the
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our conversation, we'll talk about a lot of your different pivots,
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but just give us a sense. And I know you
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started out with the tech industry, you know, I guess
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selling semiconductors, and then you made a dramatic shift. Tell
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us about that beginning, and you're a bit about your
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origin story.
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Had a a you know, fairly conventional I guess, you know,
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corporate climbing life that I was in my mid twenties,
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started working in the Silica Valley for a company called Siliconics.
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That was in in as you said, in the semiconductor industry,
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and I uh, people in the senior living world have
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assumed I'm a tech guy, but I was always I
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was just a good sales and marketing guy in the
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in the in that in that technology world, and just
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never thinking of it as it was a good career,
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good you know, you check all the boxes of of
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what you're supposed to be doing, a great family and
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and all that stuff, and never thinking of it as
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a business. A really good friend of mine, Leslie Sweeney,
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in nineteen ninety eight, all of a sudden, that's a
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long that's a long time ago, she had the idea
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to donate some computers to a local assisted living community
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in California. And again, it was never an idea for
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a business. It was just she just noticed that it
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looked like a lot of the people in this community
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that she was pretty close to geographically that were pretty
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lonely or they said, just seem kind of bored, and
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so we just just donated some computers. She worked with
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the residents for a year and it was just kind
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of a cool thing to do, and then a very
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spiritual thing happened that my mom. We were having an
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eighty the surprise birthday party from my mom in nineteen
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ninety eight, and towards the end of the party, she
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started not feeling the little great, you know, just as
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the party was winding out, she was getting a little dizzy.
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So we just had a precautionary calling ambulance. They come
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out and they look at her and that not overly concerned,
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but that well, maybe we should take her to the
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hospital just to be safe. And it turned out that
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she you know, this is such a joyful story, but
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it sounds so sad when you say that she wound
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up having a massive stroke in the ambulance on the
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way of the hospital and died the next morning. But
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it was her spirit was telling me to do something
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with my life that had purpose and had meaning, and
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it was kind of her last gift to me. And
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so without having any any idea, I mean, I'd worked
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for the same company for almost fifteen sixteen years, so
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I just completely jumped off a cliff to start a
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company called It's Never Too Late with Leslie and my
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and my brother Tom and had you know, usually people
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start companies, they have some semblance of a you know,
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you know, a skill set in whatever that industry is.
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We we had no idea on any level of what
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we were doing, which in some ways was bad and
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maybe some ways was good. But that was the whole
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inception of Iron two l and, which was all about
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bringing technology to older adults. And that's kind of how
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the whole major pivot happened and how everything else since
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then has followed.
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Yeah, so then you decided that on the name is
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never too late with Is that for you or.
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For Yeah, it was because it was all about it
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was all about just you know, it's it's nineteen ninety nine,
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so the whole computing you know, Windows had just been
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out for a while. I mean, the whole computing world
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in general was just starting much less the uh you know,
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much less older adults, much less nursing now, it was
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much less dementia. I mean, we were ahead of the
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curve on pretty much every level. But it was just
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you know, with just observationally is really kind of how
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the whole idea started. Observationally, you go into a senior
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living community and you'd see these you know, none of
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this is meant to say anything demeaning about the incredibly
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dedicated staff that work in senior living. But you know,
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you go back to nineteen ninety nine and you have
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these people that are you know, the residents that are
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you know, teachers and welders and doctors and lawyers and
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whatever the heck their their life was. They had lived
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completely rich lives and you'd look at the you know,
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at what then was called activity programming, and it was
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it was just so demeaning to people that had lived
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such full lives. And again it's not not at all
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a reflection of the of the people that worked the
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internest that just didn't have any tools. So you know,
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you have rooms full of you know, old VHS tapes
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and you're, you know, you're just you're just trying to
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keep people. It was, it was, there was just nothing,
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it was nothing really aging about it, and it just
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seemed like there's got to be a better way to
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do this. And that was That's just kind of how
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it started. The fact that we didn't know the industry,
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the fact that we didn't know that we didn't know
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what we were doing, it made us just ask questions
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of people. And there were so many people along the
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road that really helped guide the product development. They saw
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that our hearts were in the right place, and and
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it was just it was just really a you know,
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just kind of an organic beginning to a company in
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a in an industry that was starting to look at computing,
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but only through the lens of medical records and clinical applications.
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So we were, you know, you go to a conference,
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we were like out in left field doing all this
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crazy stuff. So we were way ahead of a curve.
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And like I said, it was either it was probably
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to our benefit that we had no idea what we
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were what we were talking about.
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Yeah, well it's sometimes you're right, it's good not to know.
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Yeah, yeah, exactly.
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But yeah, so of course I love your story because
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my show is forty five forward, Yeah, right, right right.
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It focuses on the fact that it is never too late,
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you know, And and many of my guests Jack, you know,
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have have had multiple careers, you know, after middle age,
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and I think that's you know, that's the point of
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it is that you can keep growing and learning things.
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And I mean we've gone through some tremendous changes. I mean,
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as I think back to my early days as a
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writer as a journalist, I'm like a little stunned I'm like, okay,
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so we were using typewriters and I was making copies
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using carbon paper.
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I was, you know it is it's so, you know,
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I want to do a you know, one of my
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many off the wall ideas. I'd love to do some
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kind of a contest of twenty five year olds to
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give them a street and Smith's map guide and tell
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them how and they kind of leave the cell phone
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home and like drive from you give them an address
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and they got to figure out how to get there.
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I mean, it's a there's and you know that's what's
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obviously we're gonna get into the Honeyrolds. You know, you
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you get into the world of folks that are centinarians,
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and you get into slide rules, and you know, it's sure,
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it's just kind of one step back, but it's the
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same thing. It's just people's aversion to change and doing
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things differently and and kind of being on the edge
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to to do it right.
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Yeah. So we'll talk about a lot of things, but
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I want to just talk a little bit more about
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it's never too late and uh, you know which you
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know now I guess is life loop right, that's it's yeah,
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And about so just a little bit about how how
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you how you do this? How do you go into communities?
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What sort of things do you do with them? And
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and how do you because you do a lot of things.
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Yeah, it's kind of like Iron two L and it's
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it's now you know, to my to my delight, it's
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a it's a it's a much it's become a much
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more sophisticated, broader product. It's part of a company called
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life Loop and it was but like I said before,
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the ion Tel, the conception was it was just trying
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to bring two older adults that did not kind of
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a combination of they didn't have a lot of computer experience,
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but they also were dealing with different levels of physical
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or cognitive decline. How do you bring them the same
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kind of things that we get used to with the computer.
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It's it really I don't know. I don't think it
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was that that that complicated of an idea, just through
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we were way ahead of the curve with touch screen.
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So it's touchscreen technology and to try to let people
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be able to get to without having to really know
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how to use a computer that just through the touch
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screen and well laid out content, they could get to
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just sections based of travel and spirituality and games and
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you know, whatever they want, just whatever. You know, what
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do we do? We want to listen to music, we
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want to I always use the analogy I'm a big
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I'm a big Springsteen guy. And it's not like when
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I hit eighty, I'm gonna all of a sudden want
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the carpenters. You know, you just we all have our
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passions right that our bodies change. We may change a
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little physically or cognitalant, we don't change the We don't
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lose the thirst to stay connected and engage with things
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that are meaningful. So Iantua is just all about trying
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to bring that what was relevant to that person and
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make it easy either for them to get to individually
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or for an activity professional to be able to guide
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their way to the content in a group context. And
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it took, and it took forever to take off. The
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first ten years of the company was more just trying
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to get people to open up to the ideas of
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computers and residents and dementia more than you're selling against
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a competitor. Was just trying to change mindsets and and
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I'm super proud of the fact that I think we
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helped did uh you know, help we helped move the
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needle of just kind of that common sense, the equation
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that you know what, everybody should have access to the
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same kind of things that we take for granted with technology.
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Yeah, and I love this approach because I mean it
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relates to actually who's using it and why are they
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using it? So, you know, I've been involved, you know,
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with ARP and a lot of advocacy groups for seniors,
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and you know, people talking, well, how do we teach
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people seniors that use technology? Well, the same way we
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teach anybody about things like like why is why is
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this relevant to you? Why would you use it? You know,
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what do you need it for? Not just oh well
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I'll learn how to use all these things and program
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and so forth. You know. So you're you're you know,
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you're just the fact that you you know, it's it's well,
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in some ways, it's customer driven. You're looking at who
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is the customer here? It's it's it's the senior and
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why do they need it? And and also you know,
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breaking through this myth of like oh well, no, seniors,
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they can't use it. You know, used to paper and
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pencils and stuff like that and no, you know, but
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you you needed your approach of really paying attention to them.
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In the early days and that this is obviously dramatically change,
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but in the early days, and this is you know,
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it kind of reminds me. It reminds me. It reminds
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me so viscerally of a moment I had when I
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was a kid and where I was a teenager, late teens,
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early you know, early twenties, think that I was working
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for my dad, and my dad was a civil engineer,
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and I remember this guy coming in with a Texas
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instrument computer and my dad's a total slide roll guy,
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you know, you know, grew up with that, and he
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was so resistant to this calculator, even though it was
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so I'm just sit there looking at the outs. I go, Dad,
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that seems to be a lot easier than that thing
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that you have. And I think a lot of the
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early resistance to iron two L and it was almost subconscious,
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I think, But the a person that had done a
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job a certain way for twenty years, all of a sudden,
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here's this guy showing up that has no knowledge of
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senior living and no knowledge of the you know, intricacies
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of aging and dementia, just saying, you know it, it's
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a lot easier just to you know, touch this. You know,
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if you're showing, if you've got a resident who you've
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built this activity about going to France and the person
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wants to go to Germany, instead of having to completely
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redo your whole day, just touch this button instead of
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that button. It's a heck of a lot easier than
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all the work you've done. But there was such resistance
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because it was just a different way for people to
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do their job. And so it you know, you'd like
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anything else, you have people that are willing to take
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a risk, a little bit of early adopters, a whole
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bunch of people that were so beneficial to us early on,
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And it took a lot of years, but it ultimately
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wound up being, you know, succeeding beyond my wildest and
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I'm Leslie and my unfortunately my brother died the other
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founder early on. So it was a tough first ten
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years of company, but wound up being like I said,
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very successful.
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Yeah, but ten years. I mean so persistence is a
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lot of it too. I mean, nobody likes change.
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It's it's funny. I don't want to get off on
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a tangent, but a lot of why I talk a
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lot to people, to young people that are entrepreneurs starting businesses,
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and as much as anything else, the reason that I
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in two L succeeded was when I was twenty five,
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I started saving twenty ten between ten and twenty percent.
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I would save of what I made and put it
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into no load mutual funds and just every month, put
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money in every month. And I'm forty and it got
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too close to a million dollars and that's what we
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used to launch I in two L. Every dime went away,
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but I didn't have have to go look for until
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about ten years later. I didn't have to go look
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for any other capital and didn't have to answer to
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anybody else. So I'm I'm a firm belief. You know,
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I've been more the like Jimmy Stewart model of starting
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a company. But half the people I talk to you
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don't even know who Jimmy Stewart is ordered to come
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up with you with a new analogy. But it was,
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you know, I think part of it just growing up
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with depression area. You know, air of parents than you know.
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You just are You're conservative and you save money and
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that's kind of how the whole thing happened from a
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financial standpoint, right right.
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Okay, So we're going to take a quick break jack Folks.
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When we come back, when we're talking much more with
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jack Yorke, the founder of Tailgate. So don't go anywhere.
307
00:16:47.600 --> 00:16:50.879
Are you caring for an aging loved one? It can
308
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feel overwhelming, but you don't have to do it alone.
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Ron's book, The Caregiving Navigator is a step by step
310
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guide designed to help you plan, prepare, and provide compassionate
311
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care with confidence, from organizing family conversations to navigating long
312
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term care and finding support for yourself the caregiver. It's
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all here. Find The Caregiving Navigator now on Amazon and
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take the first step toward peace of mind.
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Welcome back, folks, to forty five Forward. This is your host,
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Ron Rowell, and we're talking today with jack Yorke, the
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founder of Tailgate, whose mission is to capture and tell
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the stories of our best storytellers, America's seniors. So before
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the break, we were talking about Dak's earlier career with
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It's Never Too Late and how I want to now
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get into how you developed and moved into Tailgate. How
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did this transition take place.
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Yeah, when so as I and two L got bigger,
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one of the you know, I did a lot. I could.
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I could spend a lot of time talking about mistakes
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that I made, and you know, as any entrepreneur can
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can tell you that. But the one thing I did,
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I think do well was I was very self aware
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of what, you know, what I was good at when
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I was not good at. And I think I was
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a good CEO for a company of you know, ten,
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fifteen twenty people. As I in two L got larger,
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you know, and more successful, I knew that I wasn't
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the right CEO to kind of take it to the
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next level. Didn't I didn't lose the passion for the product,
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But it just takes a different skill set to kind
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of go from point, you know, from point B to
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point C. And I think a lot of people are
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their egos get in the way of letting go a
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little bit. And so as the year before COVID, I
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was trying to do some things that were more you know,
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almost more kind of public. And I was still passionate,
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still working for Ryan two out, but I did I
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wanted to kind of get out of the operational role
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and just do more really just more out in the
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field ethics, living communities and this that, and so we
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we came up with the idea I turned sixty. This
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is five and a half years ago. I turned sixty,
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and I in twell turned twenty, and so we invented
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this thing called the sixty twenty Tour that I drove
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around at a van with go pro cameras, which is
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what I'm doing now. We'll get to that later, but
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we it was it was really like carpool karaoke. We
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couldn't call it that from a license at stepoint, so
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we called it cruising and croonin. But I would we
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would just go to communities and we would get resonance
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to drive around, you know, drive around the neighborhood with me,
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and we'd sing songs and and just you know, just
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have really kind of a just wherever, wherever the conversation
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would go would go. And it was the first time
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I'm you know, my I in twel career. Not that
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this is a bad thing, but I would, you know,
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I'd lug in a demo unit and I'm trying to
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talk to the executive director and the therapists and the
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activity world from to sell the product and show what
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it was, you know, say hello to the residents, and
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but I didn't really interact with them. And then, you know,
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then you leave and you go to the next community,
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and all of a sudden, with the sixty twenty tour,
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it was really the first time that I really had
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had more deeper relations or conversations with the residents. And
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it was like, the guys people are just so cool
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and they're so thirsty to be heard, and that was
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kind of the the It just kind of planted the
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seed of there's got to be a bigger and better
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way to do this, and then when COVID hit, it was,
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you know, it's kind of it was kind of odd
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because everything I in Twell was about was really so
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ideal for cod because it was all about trying to
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connect residents to the outside world, to their families, to
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you know, to what mattered to them. And so, you know,
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just in blunt capitalistic terms, COVID probably tripled the valuation
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of I N two L and all of a sudden,
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a lot of a lot of of private equity companies
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were interested in it. And it really it really wasn't
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that we were necessarily looking to sell the company, but
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it was It's kind of and it was like, well,
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maybe maybe this is the right time to do that,
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and so we we were acquired through a private equity company,
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became part of a company Life Loop, and and I'm
391
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still involved with it. I love what it's turned into.
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Like I said earlier on It's It's it's the the
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the infusion of capital and of life Loop has allowed
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the product to become a lot broader, and it's now
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tied into AI and doing all. I mean, it's it's
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totally thriving. But uh, but that allowed me to my
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I never lost the passion for Iyan twelve, but I
398
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really felt like, almost like when I started I and twelve.
399
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It sounds kind of hokey, but it's true that it
400
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really felt like a calling to me. When I just
401
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saw the isolation and how technology was just leaving people behind,
402
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I just felt the same way. I had kind of
403
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the same feeling with Tailgate that or just in general,
404
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that just a calling to do a deeper job of
405
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trying to capture the stories of some of these folks.
406
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And so the initial launch of Tailgate was a forty
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two foot trailer that we had and that's kind of
408
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how the name tailgate came because it was ta it's
409
00:22:43.799 --> 00:22:47.440
spelled ta l e because you're capturing stories. But it
410
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was initially a lot of tailgate parties that we had
411
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this forty two foot trailer that we'd bring all over
412
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the country and we built a recording studio inside the trailer,
413
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and so we'd show up at a community and have
414
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a whole of activities and the tailgate party, and then
415
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we'd be capturing stories on the inside. And I just
416
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I fell in love with doing it. But I also felt.
417
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Like the the the the sanctity of capturing the stories
418
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was getting lost in this big party, and it really
419
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wasn't all about the party.
420
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And it was also the other, the other practical side
421
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of it is that everybody else in the company, like
422
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had lives back at home and they wanted I was
423
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pretty comfortable being on the road all the time, and
424
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so there was a little bit of like, you know what,
425
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what's a different way to do this, And so that's
426
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kind of what it's evolved to now. But that's how
427
00:23:39.319 --> 00:23:43.720
it started, and and it was the same. It's it's almos.
428
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I mean, really, the patron saint of me is probably
429
00:23:49.519 --> 00:23:52.680
Leonardo DiCaprio and catch me if you can, because now
430
00:23:52.720 --> 00:23:55.480
I'm a you know, now I'm a documentary film producer,
431
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and before I was a tech entrepreneur, both of which
432
00:23:59.480 --> 00:24:02.519
I had appo no business doing. But you you know,
433
00:24:02.559 --> 00:24:05.039
you just jump in and figure stuff out and all
434
00:24:05.079 --> 00:24:07.319
of a sudden you're you know, you start making a work.
435
00:24:07.640 --> 00:24:10.480
Yeah, So what did you have a moment when when
436
00:24:10.480 --> 00:24:14.599
you just really realize, like, wow, people really have a
437
00:24:14.640 --> 00:24:17.480
thirst to tell stories and as they've told me before,
438
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sort of uplifting stories. There are stories of their lives
439
00:24:20.480 --> 00:24:23.599
and no one was asking them. Was there sort of
440
00:24:23.599 --> 00:24:24.799
an epiphany.
441
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Part of it for me? You know, this is also
442
00:24:29.480 --> 00:24:32.079
going back to the idea of starting it is that
443
00:24:33.079 --> 00:24:36.680
when I was a kid, I you know, and I
444
00:24:36.720 --> 00:24:38.319
was talking to this before. With my dad and like
445
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the latter part of high school or the part of college,
446
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I worked for my dad and in the summers and
447
00:24:43.319 --> 00:24:47.400
so we would drive every day back and forth. We
448
00:24:47.440 --> 00:24:52.240
would drive about thirty minutes both ways, and after he died,
449
00:24:52.359 --> 00:24:54.720
it just it kind of you know, it's the classic
450
00:24:54.799 --> 00:24:58.359
story that you find out these things that your parents
451
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did after they die. So with my dad, had you know,
452
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I knew about his you know, I knew he had
453
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been a part of World War Two. I knew, you know,
454
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just very rudimentary about what he did. And I found
455
00:25:10.799 --> 00:25:13.440
out after god, all this really you know, incredibly cool
456
00:25:13.480 --> 00:25:15.599
stuff that he did that I you know, I sat
457
00:25:15.640 --> 00:25:18.039
there in the car with him, you know, not, you know,
458
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not one day, you know, I asked, you know, we
459
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talk all day about the Dodgers, about Nebraska Cornhusker football,
460
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you know, about this stuff that with you know, with
461
00:25:26.960 --> 00:25:30.160
the father son conversations. But I never asked him. You know,
462
00:25:30.160 --> 00:25:32.759
what was it like being a twenty year old kid
463
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with a civil engineering degree and all of a sudden
464
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you're on a plane going to India to build landing
465
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strips in this thing called the Burma Road. And so
466
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I that always bothered me. And so I think part
467
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of the you know, almost my subconsciousness with Tailgate is
468
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that every every person's story we capture is kind of
469
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a you know, almost a subconscious tribute to my father,
470
00:25:59.319 --> 00:26:02.279
whose story you know, you know, I never I never
471
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did capture. But you know, going back to your question,
472
00:26:06.799 --> 00:26:08.880
I don't think it was like a like a moment,
473
00:26:09.079 --> 00:26:13.759
It just it was like a daily occurrence well, actually,
474
00:26:13.759 --> 00:26:15.440
you know what, as I think about, there was I
475
00:26:15.480 --> 00:26:18.240
would say a moment. There was two or three times
476
00:26:18.359 --> 00:26:22.960
where people would come up to me after an interview
477
00:26:24.160 --> 00:26:28.079
and say how much the interview, how much it meant
478
00:26:28.119 --> 00:26:30.400
to them, And one one guy in particular, it's funny,
479
00:26:30.400 --> 00:26:32.519
I haven't thought about this forever, and just your question
480
00:26:32.880 --> 00:26:34.480
triggered it for me. I was in a really cool
481
00:26:34.519 --> 00:26:38.599
community called C. C. Young outside of Dallas, Texas, and
482
00:26:39.400 --> 00:26:43.720
did the interview in the trailer and this guy, you know,
483
00:26:43.759 --> 00:26:46.279
I'm leaving the building and we had spent maybe a
484
00:26:46.319 --> 00:26:48.519
half hour with four or five different residents. This guy
485
00:26:48.599 --> 00:26:50.920
was one of them, and this real, you know, tall guy,
486
00:26:50.960 --> 00:26:54.319
and he kind of waves me to come upstairs. Beautiful community.
487
00:26:54.519 --> 00:26:56.720
He waves me to come upstairs to say goodbye to him,
488
00:26:56.720 --> 00:26:58.839
and I and I go up to him and and
489
00:26:58.880 --> 00:27:01.240
I'm just say goodbye, and he just he looked me
490
00:27:01.279 --> 00:27:03.799
in the eye and just said, you know, you made
491
00:27:03.880 --> 00:27:08.119
me feel relevant today and I don't always feel relevant.
492
00:27:08.640 --> 00:27:12.680
And it hit me, you know, just that comment hit
493
00:27:12.759 --> 00:27:17.079
me that you know this is more important then maybe
494
00:27:17.160 --> 00:27:20.599
I'm thinking it is. And then I would hear people
495
00:27:20.680 --> 00:27:25.200
say this has happened a lot and when it first
496
00:27:25.680 --> 00:27:28.640
you know, when when I first heard it, it made
497
00:27:28.680 --> 00:27:31.440
me feel really good, and as time has gone, it's
498
00:27:31.480 --> 00:27:33.720
actually made me feel a little more sad than good.
499
00:27:33.799 --> 00:27:36.880
And that is people that have said that in the
500
00:27:37.000 --> 00:27:39.119
drives that we do, which we'll talk about in a
501
00:27:39.640 --> 00:27:42.960
few minutes, but you'll wind up talk you know, driving
502
00:27:42.960 --> 00:27:46.440
somebody around capturing their story and the personal again will
503
00:27:46.440 --> 00:27:49.000
tell you that it's the most meaningful thing that they've
504
00:27:49.000 --> 00:27:52.079
done in the last year. And when I first heard that,
505
00:27:52.119 --> 00:27:55.200
it was, wow, that is really cool. And then it's
506
00:27:55.240 --> 00:27:59.400
just like, you know that that's a sad thing that
507
00:27:59.599 --> 00:28:02.319
they're not And I think it's just it's not that
508
00:28:02.400 --> 00:28:04.480
it's me, and it's not that it's fan fair. I
509
00:28:04.559 --> 00:28:09.640
just think that it's somebody is is authentically taking the
510
00:28:09.759 --> 00:28:15.119
time to ask questions of somebody that hasn't that's lived
511
00:28:15.119 --> 00:28:19.000
a full life, yeah, and is rarely asked those questions.
512
00:28:19.079 --> 00:28:22.160
Yeah, you know, it's interesting Jack, as you're talking, I'm
513
00:28:22.200 --> 00:28:26.519
thinking back to my childhood too, and and also and
514
00:28:26.519 --> 00:28:28.799
and you know, I know we're now into tailgate, but
515
00:28:29.160 --> 00:28:31.319
but going back to life loop. To me, there is
516
00:28:31.359 --> 00:28:33.920
sort of a life loop to this. So you know,
517
00:28:34.039 --> 00:28:37.880
you think about being a kid. And what's the most
518
00:28:37.920 --> 00:28:40.799
important thing that for kids is for them to feel
519
00:28:40.839 --> 00:28:43.359
listened to, you know, and and you know the adults
520
00:28:43.400 --> 00:28:46.119
are in their own world doing this, and so there's
521
00:28:46.160 --> 00:28:49.039
this I think this long like I just want to
522
00:28:49.039 --> 00:28:50.839
be listened to, and I think that sort of carries
523
00:28:50.839 --> 00:28:53.039
through a lot of life. And now you're at the
524
00:28:53.160 --> 00:28:56.119
end of your life loop ord or further down the road,
525
00:28:56.559 --> 00:28:59.359
and again, you know, you've got this full life and
526
00:28:59.680 --> 00:29:02.000
no one listening. We're not you and I have talked
527
00:29:02.000 --> 00:29:05.839
about this before. We're not a society of listeners or talkers,
528
00:29:05.880 --> 00:29:10.000
which is okay, but what people wanted frequently is to
529
00:29:10.000 --> 00:29:13.240
be listened to, because that what makes you relevant.
530
00:29:14.839 --> 00:29:18.920
Yeah, you know, it's it's talkers. And it's also you know,
531
00:29:18.960 --> 00:29:22.319
we're a society of just sucked into our little reality,
532
00:29:22.359 --> 00:29:25.160
into a cell phone. And and again this is something
533
00:29:25.160 --> 00:29:27.920
we can talk about later, but it's a it's you know,
534
00:29:27.960 --> 00:29:31.440
a passion of mine is trying to put together this
535
00:29:32.480 --> 00:29:37.279
isolation of the older adults paired with these high school
536
00:29:37.319 --> 00:29:41.680
students who were so you know, they have their own
537
00:29:41.880 --> 00:29:45.720
version of loneliness, which is just it's just wrapped in
538
00:29:45.759 --> 00:29:49.319
a different box and it and just looking at at
539
00:29:49.440 --> 00:29:52.000
just what and we can talk about that later about
540
00:29:52.359 --> 00:29:55.079
about when about some of the things that have really
541
00:29:55.279 --> 00:29:59.759
struck me as as changes that I think that's much
542
00:29:59.839 --> 00:30:03.680
change is just I think things that senior living communities can
543
00:30:03.759 --> 00:30:09.799
do to enhance this whole issue or bring to light
544
00:30:09.839 --> 00:30:10.680
this whole issue.
545
00:30:11.160 --> 00:30:14.920
Yeah, yeah, so Jack, we're going to take another quick break,
546
00:30:15.279 --> 00:30:17.079
but folks, we have a lot more to talk about,
547
00:30:17.240 --> 00:30:20.160
so don't go away. We'll be talking much more with
548
00:30:20.279 --> 00:30:23.720
Jack Yorck, the founder of Tailgate, and now we'll get
549
00:30:23.720 --> 00:30:27.680
a transition to his stories about how he actually collects
550
00:30:27.759 --> 00:30:29.759
these stories. So we'll be right back.
551
00:30:31.119 --> 00:30:33.599
Do you like what you're hearing? Well, we've got plenty
552
00:30:33.640 --> 00:30:38.000
more where that came from. Head over to forty five
553
00:30:38.200 --> 00:30:43.079
forward dot org, where you'll find a full archive of
554
00:30:43.119 --> 00:30:47.119
over two hundred episodes of the forty five Forward podcast,
555
00:30:48.039 --> 00:30:56.160
all hosted by Ron. Each week, Ron talks with fascinating guests, experts, advocates,
556
00:30:56.160 --> 00:31:00.200
and everyday folks, sharing insights and stories to help you
557
00:31:00.240 --> 00:31:04.400
live a better, fuller life in your second half. We
558
00:31:04.480 --> 00:31:06.400
cover everything from.
559
00:31:06.119 --> 00:31:11.319
Health and care giving to careers, relationships, and finding purpose.
560
00:31:11.920 --> 00:31:18.119
Whatever helps you move forward with clarity and confidence. That's
561
00:31:18.240 --> 00:31:23.240
forty five Forward dot org. Check it out and keep
562
00:31:23.319 --> 00:31:26.119
moving forward forty five Forward.
563
00:31:33.279 --> 00:31:36.160
Welcome back, folks to forty five Forward. I'm Ron Roell,
564
00:31:36.759 --> 00:31:39.559
your host once again. We're talking to Jack Yorck, the
565
00:31:39.599 --> 00:31:44.839
founder of Tailgate, and about his passion for telling the
566
00:31:44.839 --> 00:31:48.119
stories of seniors really is the backbone of our of
567
00:31:48.119 --> 00:31:51.920
our society and our culture. So Jack, let's get into
568
00:31:51.920 --> 00:31:53.680
a little bit more about how you do this. I
569
00:31:53.720 --> 00:31:56.000
know that you've about how you do your interviews. I've
570
00:31:56.000 --> 00:31:59.000
seen some of your interviews where you're actually interviewing folks
571
00:31:59.000 --> 00:32:02.759
in the car. I found fascinating and remind me a
572
00:32:02.759 --> 00:32:04.880
little bit of that you know, that Jerry Seinfeld bit,
573
00:32:04.960 --> 00:32:09.279
you know, coffee in the car with comedians, you know. Yeah, yeah,
574
00:32:09.319 --> 00:32:10.599
but I like your version better.
575
00:32:11.359 --> 00:32:14.359
Yeah yeah. Well, I mean there's a couple like the
576
00:32:14.480 --> 00:32:17.359
Tailgate there. There's a couple of different things that we're doing,
577
00:32:17.599 --> 00:32:23.200
and one of them is we do really cool documentaries
578
00:32:23.400 --> 00:32:25.160
and why don't we can talk abou that in a minute.
579
00:32:25.240 --> 00:32:29.160
And then we're also we have a great author in
580
00:32:29.240 --> 00:32:31.680
our staff. Her name is Aubrey Road, and she's writing
581
00:32:31.680 --> 00:32:33.519
a book about some of these people that we meet
582
00:32:33.559 --> 00:32:36.119
along the way. So, I mean, everything we're generically doing
583
00:32:36.880 --> 00:32:40.519
is tied to just elevating aging and as a second
584
00:32:40.599 --> 00:32:43.400
tier way kind of elevating senior living and trying to
585
00:32:43.480 --> 00:32:46.559
kind of tweak that. But as far as the what
586
00:32:46.680 --> 00:32:51.960
a lot of people see is the uh the Vintage Voices,
587
00:32:52.039 --> 00:32:55.319
what we call Vintage Voice. It's a partnered partnership between
588
00:32:55.400 --> 00:32:57.799
Tailgate and the company called Dash Media that does great
589
00:32:57.839 --> 00:33:01.440
work with social media and see living. And so that's
590
00:33:01.480 --> 00:33:03.720
where I do a lot of the you know, a
591
00:33:03.720 --> 00:33:06.279
lot of the interviews in the car there there there,
592
00:33:06.440 --> 00:33:10.039
I think everybody's everybody who's a parent has experienced kind
593
00:33:10.039 --> 00:33:14.039
of the how you can get your kids to say
594
00:33:14.079 --> 00:33:16.759
things in a car that you know, you can just
595
00:33:16.799 --> 00:33:18.799
you can have good conversation in a car. So there
596
00:33:19.119 --> 00:33:24.359
is something oddly uh comfortable about, you know, about just
597
00:33:24.440 --> 00:33:27.440
talking while you're driving. So if you look at the
598
00:33:28.119 --> 00:33:32.640
channel we've put together with this partnership, the Vintage Voices,
599
00:33:33.559 --> 00:33:38.279
it's called Vintage Voices one hundred, which you can see
600
00:33:38.440 --> 00:33:44.279
on on Instagram and YouTube all that stuff. But I
601
00:33:44.480 --> 00:33:46.440
but I you know, I guess just we can get
602
00:33:46.440 --> 00:33:47.759
to that more of that in the minute. But in
603
00:33:47.799 --> 00:33:51.400
terms of just your question. You know, I think it's
604
00:33:51.440 --> 00:33:55.480
it's just it's just interesting to me. You know, it's
605
00:33:55.480 --> 00:33:59.039
funny because people will say people will I just I
606
00:33:59.160 --> 00:34:03.000
laugh my rear sometimes because people will say that they
607
00:34:03.039 --> 00:34:06.240
really appreciate my work and they say it like how
608
00:34:06.279 --> 00:34:09.920
you would talk to somebody who who's digging wells in
609
00:34:10.599 --> 00:34:13.559
you know, in in the you know, in Africa, like
610
00:34:13.559 --> 00:34:16.679
like I mean, I it's just it's I've always been
611
00:34:16.840 --> 00:34:20.119
a history person. I've always very enjoyed history, and I'm
612
00:34:20.159 --> 00:34:24.760
fascinated to just see, you know, what happens from generation generation.
613
00:34:24.960 --> 00:34:30.000
So for me, it's just it's just curiosity to just
614
00:34:30.079 --> 00:34:33.920
try to put myself in that person's head of what
615
00:34:34.119 --> 00:34:37.519
their life was like. And then I think that people
616
00:34:39.159 --> 00:34:43.320
they have a good radar of authenticity and they see
617
00:34:43.360 --> 00:34:48.920
that I'm authentic, right and the fact that I'm a stranger,
618
00:34:49.000 --> 00:34:52.119
I think makes it a lot easier sometimes to open up.
619
00:34:52.880 --> 00:34:55.599
And so it's it's interesting, and you know this totally.
620
00:34:55.639 --> 00:35:00.000
I think this next comment fits with the whole premise
621
00:35:00.119 --> 00:35:03.679
of what you're doing. Ron is then I honestly, I
622
00:35:03.719 --> 00:35:06.599
never really felt to be to be brutally honest, I
623
00:35:06.639 --> 00:35:08.599
never felt like I was a very good CEO. At
624
00:35:08.599 --> 00:35:10.920
I twelve, I was a good sales guy, but I
625
00:35:10.920 --> 00:35:16.119
really wasn't very good CEO. But I really feel like
626
00:35:16.159 --> 00:35:20.320
I'm good at interviewing and and and and I think
627
00:35:20.320 --> 00:35:22.599
it's a to the point of your show. It's a
628
00:35:22.800 --> 00:35:26.880
skill set that I never would have ever thought that
629
00:35:26.960 --> 00:35:30.639
I had, that I don't even tap into till my
630
00:35:30.719 --> 00:35:33.960
early sixties. And and it's and it's turning out to
631
00:35:34.039 --> 00:35:37.440
be something I thoroughly enjoy, you know, I think that
632
00:35:37.559 --> 00:35:41.639
I'm good at and I've surrounded myself with phenomenal with
633
00:35:41.719 --> 00:35:45.079
the documentaries that we do, phenomenal team of editors and
634
00:35:45.480 --> 00:35:50.639
uh and videographers that really make the conversations that we
635
00:35:50.760 --> 00:35:54.519
have come to life. But it's really it, you know,
636
00:35:54.519 --> 00:35:57.119
I think that I think what anybody's good at doing
637
00:35:57.920 --> 00:36:00.960
doesn't seem that hard. Like for me, I really enjoy
638
00:36:01.639 --> 00:36:04.159
public speaking and getting in front of you know, get
639
00:36:04.159 --> 00:36:06.480
in front of groups of people and talk about these
640
00:36:06.559 --> 00:36:08.719
lessons I'm learning and this is that. And so like
641
00:36:08.760 --> 00:36:14.119
when you hear how the terror that public speaking strikes
642
00:36:14.159 --> 00:36:17.159
inside of people, I don't get it. But man, throw
643
00:36:17.280 --> 00:36:21.920
me a pipe wrench with a with a toilet overflowing
644
00:36:22.119 --> 00:36:24.519
and that's when I get terrified. I have no idea
645
00:36:24.559 --> 00:36:26.320
what dude, So I think, you know, we all kind
646
00:36:26.320 --> 00:36:29.840
of have our mojo of what we do. But to me,
647
00:36:30.000 --> 00:36:32.400
I think, again, just going back to your question, it's
648
00:36:32.559 --> 00:36:39.599
just being genuinely curious about a person's whatever the topic is,
649
00:36:39.719 --> 00:36:42.320
and then just shut up and let them, let them
650
00:36:42.400 --> 00:36:43.000
run with it.
651
00:36:43.239 --> 00:36:45.519
Yeah, I think you're right, Jack. I think I think
652
00:36:45.559 --> 00:36:50.000
people detect your curiosity. It's a genuine curiosity. You're just
653
00:36:50.039 --> 00:36:53.599
interested in their lives. You're listening to them, and you know,
654
00:36:53.920 --> 00:36:57.360
I think especially with older people, you know, they've lived
655
00:36:57.360 --> 00:36:59.920
a long time and they can pick up, you know, things,
656
00:37:00.679 --> 00:37:03.440
they can sense things, you know, because they've their brain
657
00:37:03.519 --> 00:37:05.920
is is you know, a similating a lot of experiences,
658
00:37:05.920 --> 00:37:09.199
and they can tell very quickly. This guy is for real,
659
00:37:09.519 --> 00:37:12.159
and he's generally interested, and he's not he's not threatening
660
00:37:12.199 --> 00:37:13.760
to me, he's not trying to do he's not trying
661
00:37:13.800 --> 00:37:16.559
to coerce me get something out of me. He's genuinely
662
00:37:16.599 --> 00:37:18.280
curious and he wants to know what was my name?
663
00:37:18.360 --> 00:37:20.320
Yeah, like this guy. There's a guy, a guy in
664
00:37:20.440 --> 00:37:26.000
Iowa that worked for forty five mill forty five years
665
00:37:26.079 --> 00:37:29.639
at General Mills and making cereal, and I just thought
666
00:37:29.679 --> 00:37:32.000
that was I thought that was fascinating. Like, you know,
667
00:37:32.239 --> 00:37:36.960
it's easy to stereotype, like, you know what a that's
668
00:37:37.000 --> 00:37:39.079
that's kind of must have been kind of a boring job,
669
00:37:39.599 --> 00:37:41.920
you know, you the guy starts talking about it, he
670
00:37:41.960 --> 00:37:44.440
was doing all kinds of stuff and that was that's
671
00:37:44.519 --> 00:37:48.599
his his identity is General Mills and the stuff that
672
00:37:48.679 --> 00:37:53.679
he was doing to improve cereal, and it, uh, you know,
673
00:37:54.039 --> 00:37:56.239
from the outside it could seem like a simple thing
674
00:37:56.280 --> 00:38:00.159
to him. That was his life for forty five years,
675
00:38:00.239 --> 00:38:02.320
and you want to you want to honor it and
676
00:38:02.400 --> 00:38:04.199
let him talk about it. And the guy hadn't talked
677
00:38:04.199 --> 00:38:07.559
about it for probably you know, you know, he was
678
00:38:07.599 --> 00:38:09.440
a hundred and one and there is a hundred one
679
00:38:09.480 --> 00:38:12.239
and the buddies that he worked with are all gone.
680
00:38:12.360 --> 00:38:15.719
So I mean there's a lot of yeah, a lot
681
00:38:15.719 --> 00:38:19.840
of psychological kind of dynamics to some of these conversations
682
00:38:19.880 --> 00:38:22.119
that I think. You don't you don't really think of
683
00:38:22.239 --> 00:38:24.880
you just have the conversation. But there's a The more
684
00:38:24.920 --> 00:38:26.719
I do it, the more I realize it really is
685
00:38:26.800 --> 00:38:29.960
tappened into something a lot deeper than I originally thought.
686
00:38:30.280 --> 00:38:32.880
Yeah, yeah, I think that we just don't think about
687
00:38:32.880 --> 00:38:35.199
the fact that, you know, there is loss in life.
688
00:38:35.360 --> 00:38:38.079
You know, you lose your family, your friends, they move away,
689
00:38:38.159 --> 00:38:41.719
they pass away, but but your need to connect is
690
00:38:41.760 --> 00:38:45.559
still there, you know, and and you know, so I
691
00:38:45.599 --> 00:38:49.119
think that as you pointed at earlier, COVID really pushed this,
692
00:38:49.320 --> 00:38:52.159
you know, triggered this realization like, oh wow, people are
693
00:38:52.199 --> 00:38:56.159
really lonely. They need to connect. But but this does
694
00:38:56.159 --> 00:38:59.400
it in the more, you know, I don't know. Yeah, well,
695
00:38:59.440 --> 00:39:01.400
I think it's nice that you you know, you have
696
00:39:01.760 --> 00:39:06.960
you tailgate for for Roman numeral for joy, which is
697
00:39:07.000 --> 00:39:10.440
the joy aspect of it, that this is joyful. I mean, yeah,
698
00:39:10.639 --> 00:39:15.239
there's a certain wistfulness about it, it's true. But the
699
00:39:15.280 --> 00:39:17.360
ability for people to do this I think is really
700
00:39:17.400 --> 00:39:20.639
important to them. Any any other you mentioned this guy
701
00:39:20.639 --> 00:39:24.239
from Gentlem Mills, any other stories that have surprised you
702
00:39:24.400 --> 00:39:26.880
or just sort of stuck with you that you know,
703
00:39:27.400 --> 00:39:28.840
you've done so many. I know it's hard.
704
00:39:28.920 --> 00:39:33.960
Yeah, you know, I think the you know, let me
705
00:39:34.000 --> 00:39:38.360
answer kind of both specifically and generically. Specifically, you know,
706
00:39:38.360 --> 00:39:40.480
I've talked to a handful of World War Two vets
707
00:39:40.800 --> 00:39:44.320
that and those stories are just fascinating, but just a
708
00:39:44.320 --> 00:39:48.119
couple of months ago. Like you, I'm talking about one
709
00:39:48.159 --> 00:39:50.599
hundred You like, the documentaries that we do are very
710
00:39:50.760 --> 00:39:53.440
planned and there's a real you know, there's a whole
711
00:39:53.559 --> 00:39:56.800
story that we're putting together and plotting, and that's a
712
00:39:56.880 --> 00:40:01.039
very structured process. The Vintage Voice one hundred year old visits,
713
00:40:01.119 --> 00:40:03.079
you just show up. You don't know what's going to happen.
714
00:40:03.360 --> 00:40:05.519
But anyway, So I've had a lot of these, a
715
00:40:05.519 --> 00:40:08.679
lot of the World War two vets, and all of
716
00:40:08.719 --> 00:40:10.920
a sudden, a couple of months ago, a guy gets
717
00:40:10.960 --> 00:40:16.119
in just a thick German accent, and he grew up
718
00:40:16.360 --> 00:40:19.559
he grew up in Germany as a kid, and he
719
00:40:19.639 --> 00:40:25.320
had to spend thirty minutes every morning singing praise songs
720
00:40:25.360 --> 00:40:30.400
to Hitler Wow. And then and that night he's running
721
00:40:30.480 --> 00:40:33.440
between his house and a bomb shelter, you know, right
722
00:40:33.519 --> 00:40:36.559
in the middle of everything. But you think about that stuff,
723
00:40:37.840 --> 00:40:40.679
you know, I think you you you think about that
724
00:40:40.760 --> 00:40:44.880
as being ancient history. And then you're just sitting, you know,
725
00:40:45.000 --> 00:40:49.239
in the car, right next to somebody. You know, you
726
00:40:49.239 --> 00:40:52.679
each got your cup of coffee, and it's a person
727
00:40:52.760 --> 00:40:57.440
that just lived it. So I think that there's you know,
728
00:40:57.480 --> 00:41:01.639
it's almost like, you know, it's I could spend you know,
729
00:41:01.760 --> 00:41:05.920
fourteen of your episodes talking about the individual stories there
730
00:41:06.079 --> 00:41:11.519
there there just is it's it's just fascinating to me,
731
00:41:13.400 --> 00:41:17.239
the resiliency that people had. Seventy five percent of the
732
00:41:17.239 --> 00:41:20.199
people that we talked to grew up with no power,
733
00:41:20.360 --> 00:41:24.480
with no election, you know, no electricity half the time,
734
00:41:24.559 --> 00:41:27.480
no running water, bathrooms outside of it's a rural area.
735
00:41:28.199 --> 00:41:30.400
And the one thing they all have in common is
736
00:41:30.519 --> 00:41:35.360
nobody complained that. There's not one iota of complaining about So.
737
00:41:35.440 --> 00:41:37.840
I mean, I my tolerance, I you know, this is
738
00:41:37.920 --> 00:41:41.880
like my tolerance level of young people complaining about stuff
739
00:41:42.000 --> 00:41:47.679
is extremely low. Gallow, Yeah, yeah, so it uh but
740
00:41:47.800 --> 00:41:50.400
I do I I you know, honestly, ron I I
741
00:41:50.920 --> 00:41:54.960
go to bed at night, I can't. I can't tell
742
00:41:55.000 --> 00:41:59.239
you how the spiritual impact these people have on me.
743
00:41:59.320 --> 00:42:03.760
And it just I try to really at the end
744
00:42:03.800 --> 00:42:08.800
of the day just spend some time with the lights
745
00:42:08.840 --> 00:42:13.960
out and nothing and just think about who that person
746
00:42:14.159 --> 00:42:17.199
was that I talked that day, and it is it
747
00:42:17.320 --> 00:42:19.280
is you know, it sounds hokey to say it, but
748
00:42:19.320 --> 00:42:22.719
it is such an honor to capture this you know,
749
00:42:22.719 --> 00:42:26.119
we just you have somebody's life on an SD card, right,
750
00:42:26.159 --> 00:42:28.360
and you know, we do all the social media stuff
751
00:42:28.400 --> 00:42:32.679
and it's getting you know, it's getting tens of thousands
752
00:42:32.679 --> 00:42:35.400
of followers and it's got millions of views. And you know,
753
00:42:35.920 --> 00:42:38.679
I don't mean to sound flippant, but that is so
754
00:42:38.719 --> 00:42:41.239
irrelevant to me. The relevant to me, the relevance to
755
00:42:41.239 --> 00:42:44.800
me what we're doing is that you you give that family.
756
00:42:45.880 --> 00:42:48.519
Here's the story, you know, here's this. You know, we'll
757
00:42:48.639 --> 00:42:52.880
edit the SD card, here's the story of your dad's life,
758
00:42:52.920 --> 00:42:56.800
your grandpa's life. And my kids, you know, my kids
759
00:42:56.920 --> 00:43:01.320
never met my dad, and and you know, you can
760
00:43:01.400 --> 00:43:06.119
show a picture and it's great, but to listen, you know,
761
00:43:06.239 --> 00:43:09.239
it's it's just the honor of doing this, the capturing.
762
00:43:09.880 --> 00:43:15.239
And it's happened several several times where the person's died
763
00:43:15.400 --> 00:43:18.840
and then we can we can get for the family,
764
00:43:18.960 --> 00:43:22.480
here's the stuff you inevitably didn't know about your mom
765
00:43:22.559 --> 00:43:24.800
or dad. So there is a I think I used
766
00:43:24.800 --> 00:43:27.000
this for before. There's a sanctity to all of this,
767
00:43:27.719 --> 00:43:31.440
and it's spirituality at all this that is just is
768
00:43:31.559 --> 00:43:34.079
just it's it's hard to it's hard to.
769
00:43:34.039 --> 00:43:39.960
Convey Yeah, yeah, you know, you you you missed those opportunities.
770
00:43:40.000 --> 00:43:42.320
You know, I think for a lot of us, you know,
771
00:43:42.800 --> 00:43:45.920
after after college, you know, I came back and I
772
00:43:45.960 --> 00:43:48.360
spent some time well after bad to school. It was
773
00:43:48.360 --> 00:43:52.360
a little bit after but with my folks, when I
774
00:43:52.440 --> 00:43:55.000
was working on an entrepreneurial project with one of my brothers.
775
00:43:55.679 --> 00:43:59.480
And you know, at first, you know, you're like, here,
776
00:43:59.519 --> 00:44:02.920
I am back home, you know, my parents. But now
777
00:44:02.960 --> 00:44:07.480
you're both adults, and you know, interestingly, in some ways
778
00:44:07.519 --> 00:44:11.239
the time was too short because I realized, well, now
779
00:44:11.280 --> 00:44:13.320
I can really talk to my dad, you know. And
780
00:44:13.360 --> 00:44:17.280
I remember, you know, you know, inviting him to lunch
781
00:44:17.440 --> 00:44:21.400
one day and saying, you know, why why did you
782
00:44:21.440 --> 00:44:23.920
make that decision? You know, why did you decide to
783
00:44:24.000 --> 00:44:26.119
drop out of law school? And who was at Harvard
784
00:44:26.199 --> 00:44:28.320
Law School? Why did you? You know, so things that
785
00:44:28.880 --> 00:44:31.880
you know that that we miss because you know, we're
786
00:44:31.960 --> 00:44:36.559
such a you know what mobile society. You know, we're
787
00:44:36.639 --> 00:44:39.559
a society of movers, and we just keep moving and moving.
788
00:44:39.639 --> 00:44:42.840
We don't get that time to connect. And so this
789
00:44:42.920 --> 00:44:46.239
is an interesting you know, you know, dventure viewers. I
790
00:44:46.280 --> 00:44:47.760
really appreciate the fact.
791
00:44:47.519 --> 00:44:50.239
That what's something you found out about your dad that
792
00:44:50.320 --> 00:44:52.119
you that you had no idea.
793
00:44:53.599 --> 00:44:56.840
Well, I had no idea his his father was a lawyer,
794
00:44:57.360 --> 00:45:00.639
very you know, successful lawyer, and and he could have
795
00:45:00.639 --> 00:45:03.360
been a lawyer. So what I found out, I said,
796
00:45:03.440 --> 00:45:05.440
why why didn't you want to go to law school?
797
00:45:05.880 --> 00:45:08.880
What bothered you about the law? Because he's like your dad,
798
00:45:08.960 --> 00:45:12.599
he turned out to be an engineer. And so he said, well,
799
00:45:13.000 --> 00:45:16.000
I didn't like the fact that as a lawyer you
800
00:45:16.039 --> 00:45:19.480
could argue two sides of the issue, one side and
801
00:45:19.559 --> 00:45:21.599
the next. He said, like, either either one side is
802
00:45:21.679 --> 00:45:24.360
right or not. You know, that's his engineering mind. So
803
00:45:24.400 --> 00:45:26.800
he didn't you know, he didn't like that kind of
804
00:45:27.679 --> 00:45:31.639
what to him was the sense of hypocrisy, you know,
805
00:45:32.159 --> 00:45:35.119
in the profession. So but that he had never really
806
00:45:35.199 --> 00:45:37.599
I had never really asked him about that, like why
807
00:45:38.039 --> 00:45:40.599
you know and that, and I it made a lot
808
00:45:40.599 --> 00:45:43.960
of sense knowing my dad's had a real sense of
809
00:45:44.000 --> 00:45:47.760
deep ethical sense of fairness in life, you know. So
810
00:45:47.960 --> 00:45:49.639
if it weren't for that lunch, though, I don't think
811
00:45:49.679 --> 00:45:51.039
I really would have been able.
812
00:45:50.840 --> 00:45:53.239
To Yeah, yeah, after that. Well the other thing too,
813
00:45:53.360 --> 00:45:56.559
is like you're in your not that it's this is
814
00:45:56.599 --> 00:45:58.760
a bad thing. It's it's just reality. I think you
815
00:45:58.800 --> 00:46:00.920
in your teens and twenties, you're kind of in your
816
00:46:00.920 --> 00:46:03.039
own head. You know, you're just you're trying to figure
817
00:46:03.039 --> 00:46:05.360
out your own stuff, so you don't you don't think
818
00:46:05.400 --> 00:46:07.960
about the reflectiveness that you think about when you you know,
819
00:46:08.039 --> 00:46:10.400
for me in kind of mid sixties, I do it.
820
00:46:10.400 --> 00:46:12.480
It's kind of an eye This is was not planned
821
00:46:12.519 --> 00:46:14.920
at all, but it's it's it's so relevant. Is that
822
00:46:15.480 --> 00:46:17.719
we have the van. I drive around in this whole
823
00:46:17.760 --> 00:46:20.199
vintage voice, hundred year old van. I drive around. It's
824
00:46:20.239 --> 00:46:23.760
all wrapped and there's a great picture of my there's
825
00:46:23.960 --> 00:46:26.159
of my dad in World War Two, and it's like
826
00:46:26.360 --> 00:46:29.639
right where the gas cap is. It's like every time
827
00:46:29.679 --> 00:46:32.480
I get gas, I'm like having a little silent Hey,
828
00:46:32.760 --> 00:46:36.239
what's going on Dad. It's like whole little connection that
829
00:46:36.280 --> 00:46:39.719
we have. But that, yeah, it's I mean, it is.
830
00:46:39.760 --> 00:46:43.079
I think you know, a takeaway from this for people
831
00:46:43.199 --> 00:46:46.440
is that you know it's a cliche, but just you know,
832
00:46:46.760 --> 00:46:49.199
go it's so easy with goport. There's so many ways
833
00:46:49.239 --> 00:46:52.320
to film things that there's just no excuse not to
834
00:46:52.400 --> 00:46:54.679
do it. And you just you know, while your parents
835
00:46:54.679 --> 00:46:58.039
are or even your kids, you know, you know, just
836
00:46:58.039 --> 00:47:01.559
just take time to slow down and capture stuff and
837
00:47:02.280 --> 00:47:03.239
you never regret it.
838
00:47:03.440 --> 00:47:07.639
Yeah, so we're just take one more quick break. I
839
00:47:07.679 --> 00:47:09.280
still want to get into quite a bit of that
840
00:47:09.360 --> 00:47:11.000
stuff with you, but we'll get in as much as
841
00:47:11.000 --> 00:47:13.880
we can. So, folks, we're going to take one more
842
00:47:13.960 --> 00:47:18.039
quick break. But don't go away because we have a
843
00:47:18.039 --> 00:47:20.840
lot more to talk about in our last segment with
844
00:47:21.159 --> 00:47:24.400
jack Yorke, the founder of Tailgate. So don't go anywhere.
845
00:47:25.840 --> 00:47:30.119
Caring for a loved one can feel overwhelming. That's why
846
00:47:30.159 --> 00:47:34.400
we created caregiving nav dot com, your personal guide through
847
00:47:34.440 --> 00:47:39.199
the complex world of caregiving. It's a free, interactive website
848
00:47:39.239 --> 00:47:43.559
built around the Caregiving Navigator Book with tools designed to
849
00:47:43.639 --> 00:47:47.840
make your journey easier. Whether you're planning a head, managing
850
00:47:47.920 --> 00:47:52.400
care right now, or navigating a crisis, you'll find step
851
00:47:52.440 --> 00:47:58.320
by step advice, trusted resources, and over a dozen downloadable checklists.
852
00:47:59.039 --> 00:48:04.119
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853
00:48:04.239 --> 00:48:09.480
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854
00:48:09.639 --> 00:48:14.039
visit caregiving nav dot com.
855
00:48:13.000 --> 00:48:16.599
Because you're not alone on this path, and the help
856
00:48:16.639 --> 00:48:25.039
you need is just a click away.
857
00:48:25.639 --> 00:48:28.119
And welcome back, folks to forty five forward when we're
858
00:48:28.159 --> 00:48:31.199
talking today with jack Yorke, we've been covering a lot
859
00:48:31.280 --> 00:48:35.960
of territory about how he is gathered and disseminated the
860
00:48:36.000 --> 00:48:40.840
stories of America's seniors, terrific stories. A very interesting and
861
00:48:40.920 --> 00:48:44.119
we're going to now just talk about you know, his
862
00:48:44.199 --> 00:48:49.599
Vinca's Voices project talks about the lives of centenarians one
863
00:48:49.679 --> 00:48:54.239
hundred year olds, and he had some interesting observations about
864
00:48:54.320 --> 00:48:56.920
you know, because everyone says like, oh, well, what are
865
00:48:56.920 --> 00:49:01.239
the secrets to living so long? And interesting observations that
866
00:49:01.320 --> 00:49:03.079
have nothing to do with food and diet.
867
00:49:03.400 --> 00:49:07.559
Yeah, yeah, yeah, well the uh, you know one thing too,
868
00:49:07.599 --> 00:49:09.639
I think this is this is like a good for
869
00:49:09.760 --> 00:49:15.039
your listeners, a a good trivia bar statistic is that
870
00:49:15.079 --> 00:49:20.760
there there's more people, you know, more centenarians, more people
871
00:49:20.960 --> 00:49:23.880
over one hundred now than in the history of the
872
00:49:23.920 --> 00:49:27.719
world combined. So that, I mean, that is that isn't crazy.
873
00:49:27.880 --> 00:49:30.719
So it's definitely you know, and it's just with all
874
00:49:30.760 --> 00:49:33.320
the medical advances obviously, it's it's not as much of
875
00:49:33.360 --> 00:49:36.159
a novel it as before it you know, we talked
876
00:49:36.199 --> 00:49:39.719
a little bit about this before that it's and there's
877
00:49:39.760 --> 00:49:41.840
you know, there's really, you know, you look at something,
878
00:49:42.000 --> 00:49:43.679
you know, like the blue zone, there's all that. You know.
879
00:49:44.000 --> 00:49:45.800
I don't want to pretend to be a researcher. All
880
00:49:45.840 --> 00:49:48.239
I'm talking about is just the anecdotal stuff I've seen.
881
00:49:48.960 --> 00:49:54.400
But there has been no consistency at all when it
882
00:49:54.559 --> 00:49:59.719
comes to diet, when it comes to you know, do
883
00:49:59.760 --> 00:50:02.760
you ankoring? And there's there's people that have not had
884
00:50:02.800 --> 00:50:05.119
a drink ever. There's somebody else that, you know, at
885
00:50:05.280 --> 00:50:08.880
nine in the morning has a glass of bourbon every day.
886
00:50:08.960 --> 00:50:12.079
Like there's no consisten is that? But the things that
887
00:50:12.119 --> 00:50:17.679
have been consistent are I mean, faith has been like
888
00:50:17.840 --> 00:50:21.559
ninety five percent consistent, that people having a very strong
889
00:50:21.599 --> 00:50:26.000
connection with God, with you know, whatever their God is.
890
00:50:26.440 --> 00:50:28.400
A few people have been you know, just kind of
891
00:50:28.480 --> 00:50:31.800
vehemently not but that's still about ninety five percent. What's
892
00:50:31.800 --> 00:50:34.400
been one hundred percent consistent, and it was It's interesting.
893
00:50:35.159 --> 00:50:37.599
It's almost a couple of things. One of is it's
894
00:50:37.719 --> 00:50:44.639
almost a feistiness of people. You know, obviously, anybody over
895
00:50:44.639 --> 00:50:46.559
one hundred, most of them are gonna have some kind
896
00:50:46.559 --> 00:50:49.280
of physical issues and so there are some things they
897
00:50:49.280 --> 00:50:53.599
need help with, but they they begrudgingly take that help
898
00:50:53.679 --> 00:50:57.000
they do. And it's interesting because I think a lot
899
00:50:57.000 --> 00:51:00.719
of mindset, you know, for good reason, and whether it's
900
00:51:01.000 --> 00:51:03.519
is an individual or a living community, is you try
901
00:51:03.599 --> 00:51:06.800
to take every you try to do everything for people.
902
00:51:06.920 --> 00:51:09.679
And I think that I walk away from this thinking
903
00:51:10.480 --> 00:51:13.280
that's probably not the right answer, because people still, you know,
904
00:51:13.360 --> 00:51:16.039
they they still want to try to use you know,
905
00:51:16.159 --> 00:51:18.239
use their utensils. They still want to try to walk
906
00:51:18.280 --> 00:51:20.599
as much as they can. So that was one thing.
907
00:51:20.679 --> 00:51:24.159
Another thing is just a you know, very few people
908
00:51:24.199 --> 00:51:27.280
that I've interviewed over one hundred are sitting around watching television.
909
00:51:27.320 --> 00:51:31.599
There there is a a thirst of there's a curiosity
910
00:51:31.679 --> 00:51:35.280
that stays there. People asking me about the cameras and
911
00:51:35.360 --> 00:51:36.840
you know, what are we doing with all this stuff?
912
00:51:36.880 --> 00:51:40.559
And it really is you know, that has been very interesting.
913
00:51:40.559 --> 00:51:42.880
And the last thing, and this has been a great
914
00:51:42.920 --> 00:51:45.639
thing for me to to look at in my in
915
00:51:45.679 --> 00:51:51.239
my mid sixties, is just movement. Just very intentional people
916
00:51:51.400 --> 00:51:55.159
trying to move realize, you know, not heavy exercise, not
917
00:51:55.320 --> 00:51:57.320
some people do heavy exercise, but a lot of but
918
00:51:57.360 --> 00:51:59.960
people just intentionally trying to walk as much as they
919
00:52:00.159 --> 00:52:04.480
can and uh and and have consistent movement. But those
920
00:52:04.559 --> 00:52:07.679
those three things have been pretty consistent, but it it
921
00:52:08.079 --> 00:52:12.000
you know, the personalities, the we you know have Oh,
922
00:52:12.199 --> 00:52:13.800
I'll just say a couple of things like you you
923
00:52:13.920 --> 00:52:17.800
kind of you kind of have this this this sense
924
00:52:17.880 --> 00:52:21.800
of puritanism that you know is not really relevant. But
925
00:52:21.840 --> 00:52:24.599
there was one guy that was ninety it was one
926
00:52:24.679 --> 00:52:26.719
hundred and two and he was talking about his wife
927
00:52:27.360 --> 00:52:31.519
died when he was seventy five and uh and so
928
00:52:31.559 --> 00:52:33.119
it was like, that must have been hard. How did
929
00:52:33.159 --> 00:52:35.840
you excuse me eighty five? He wiped time he was
930
00:52:35.840 --> 00:52:36.880
eighty five. I was like, well, how did you it
931
00:52:36.920 --> 00:52:38.480
must have been you know, how did you deal with that?
932
00:52:38.559 --> 00:52:40.840
What was your you know, what what was it like?
933
00:52:40.880 --> 00:52:44.239
And he was like, well, luckily, six months later I
934
00:52:44.280 --> 00:52:47.280
met a short redhead and she was a sexual dynamo.
935
00:52:47.760 --> 00:52:50.239
And so this is like a guy in eighty five.
936
00:52:50.320 --> 00:52:54.159
So I think that the I think the reason the
937
00:52:54.320 --> 00:52:57.519
channel is popular this is this. I have no research
938
00:52:57.559 --> 00:53:00.639
on this. It's just kind of intuitive that Dad Media
939
00:53:00.679 --> 00:53:03.440
and our friend Nathan Jones, who does all the analytics,
940
00:53:04.519 --> 00:53:06.639
most of the people that watch it, and it's been
941
00:53:06.719 --> 00:53:09.880
millions and millions of views this stuff has had are
942
00:53:10.039 --> 00:53:12.800
people like between forty five and sixty five, and I
943
00:53:12.840 --> 00:53:17.119
think it's I think it's showing their eighty year old
944
00:53:17.239 --> 00:53:21.119
parents that are feeling like they should check out that.
945
00:53:21.280 --> 00:53:24.159
You know, Mom, look at this lady that's twenty years
946
00:53:24.239 --> 00:53:26.400
old older than you are, and it's just kicking butt.
947
00:53:26.480 --> 00:53:29.639
And I think, you know, for your audience, run that
948
00:53:29.800 --> 00:53:34.239
is so relevant. I think that how how it's it's relevant,
949
00:53:34.480 --> 00:53:38.079
how irrelevant the number of an age is because you'll
950
00:53:38.119 --> 00:53:42.920
just see people that are super frail at sixty something
951
00:53:42.960 --> 00:53:46.639
and somebody just going crazy at a at one hundred
952
00:53:46.639 --> 00:53:50.840
and five, and so it really it's just it's it's
953
00:53:50.880 --> 00:53:54.360
a joy to keep, you know, keep finding these people
954
00:53:54.519 --> 00:53:57.400
and to and to just see you know, what they're
955
00:53:57.440 --> 00:53:59.639
going to say. And like I said before, it's not
956
00:54:00.920 --> 00:54:04.559
the stories don't have to be about dramatic things they've done.
957
00:54:04.639 --> 00:54:10.079
There's there's there's a there's a beauty to the the
958
00:54:10.119 --> 00:54:14.039
more simplistic people that have just lived good lives and
959
00:54:14.079 --> 00:54:15.440
are proud of those good lives.
960
00:54:16.800 --> 00:54:18.639
Yeah, you've talked to me about you know, there's just
961
00:54:18.679 --> 00:54:20.880
a quiet dignity about a lot of these people that
962
00:54:21.000 --> 00:54:23.480
you and a lot of them. But as you mentioned,
963
00:54:23.559 --> 00:54:25.800
you know, going back to World War two, especially these
964
00:54:25.880 --> 00:54:28.840
veterans that you can sense that in them, but in general,
965
00:54:28.880 --> 00:54:31.519
I think a lot of people there is that. You know,
966
00:54:32.000 --> 00:54:35.119
you you get more comfortable with yourself as you get older.
967
00:54:35.519 --> 00:54:36.480
Yeah you are.
968
00:54:37.480 --> 00:54:39.480
Yeah. And I and I just again a little lot
969
00:54:39.480 --> 00:54:41.159
of talk, but I just I want to not regret
970
00:54:41.199 --> 00:54:45.039
that and bring this up. There really is an intense,
971
00:54:45.719 --> 00:54:50.480
an intensity of loneliness throughout the communities, and I really
972
00:54:50.559 --> 00:54:54.519
do the one thing I'm really really trying to preach
973
00:54:55.400 --> 00:54:57.159
as I speak and as I talk to a lot
974
00:54:57.159 --> 00:55:00.280
of people that run livy communities is to tie in
975
00:55:00.320 --> 00:55:03.079
with local high schools. Because like the one quick story
976
00:55:03.119 --> 00:55:05.760
that speaks to that is a gentleman, a gentleman that
977
00:55:05.880 --> 00:55:08.199
was you know, he's one hundred and one. It's kind
978
00:55:08.199 --> 00:55:11.000
of frail in his walker going up to the van.
979
00:55:11.639 --> 00:55:14.920
He gets into the van, we started talking. The guy
980
00:55:14.960 --> 00:55:20.039
had a silver Star from World War Two for jumping
981
00:55:20.159 --> 00:55:23.159
out of a plane that was flying about one hundred
982
00:55:23.159 --> 00:55:28.000
feet over the water to rescue two British pilots that
983
00:55:28.039 --> 00:55:33.079
had crashed. And like you hear that story and the
984
00:55:33.119 --> 00:55:35.960
guy instantly is not this frail guy in a walker.
985
00:55:36.440 --> 00:55:39.360
He's the guy that jumped out of a freaking plane
986
00:55:39.360 --> 00:55:41.679
to do that. And so I went to his house
987
00:55:41.800 --> 00:55:45.119
later that day. He had all of the stuff there
988
00:55:45.159 --> 00:55:48.519
to show me. He was so thirsty to tell it
989
00:55:48.639 --> 00:55:52.000
and show it. He'd lived at the community for ten years.
990
00:55:52.639 --> 00:55:54.880
I drive out of the parking lot at the end
991
00:55:54.920 --> 00:55:58.320
of the afternoon. It's right across the street from a
992
00:55:58.400 --> 00:56:03.960
high school. How any classes have graduated talking about World
993
00:56:04.039 --> 00:56:06.360
War two, talking about the creat war, created war, talking
994
00:56:06.360 --> 00:56:09.519
about Vietnam and right across the street are these people
995
00:56:09.519 --> 00:56:13.840
that are so thirsty to tell their experiences? And so
996
00:56:13.920 --> 00:56:17.119
I just think that I think it's easy to get
997
00:56:17.159 --> 00:56:20.599
caught up in the enormity of big picture issues. It's
998
00:56:20.639 --> 00:56:24.599
not difficult to forge a partnership between a senior living
999
00:56:24.599 --> 00:56:27.800
community in a high school to just have their history
1000
00:56:27.800 --> 00:56:31.519
classes start integrating residents, to tell that that's things that
1001
00:56:31.559 --> 00:56:32.480
people can just do.
1002
00:56:32.599 --> 00:56:36.360
Yeah, And I think that's you know, there's much more engagement,
1003
00:56:36.480 --> 00:56:40.239
much more sense of meaning. Yeah, nothing wrong with going
1004
00:56:40.320 --> 00:56:44.199
to having you know, elementary or kids go and visit
1005
00:56:44.239 --> 00:56:47.440
a senior community or senior center and share, you know,
1006
00:56:47.480 --> 00:56:50.840
with the seniors. But the sharing of those experiences, I
1007
00:56:50.880 --> 00:56:53.320
think that's what's It's not just you know, being there
1008
00:56:53.360 --> 00:56:54.719
and leaving them.
1009
00:56:54.800 --> 00:56:58.639
Yeah. Yeah, and it's a whole other topic. But I
1010
00:56:58.679 --> 00:57:02.519
think that the the importance of a relationship rather than
1011
00:57:02.599 --> 00:57:04.880
kind of a one and done experience.
1012
00:57:06.239 --> 00:57:08.440
So before we go, I want to make sure that
1013
00:57:08.480 --> 00:57:10.599
we tell people how to get in touch with you
1014
00:57:10.639 --> 00:57:13.679
into you know, how how to watch the videos and
1015
00:57:13.800 --> 00:57:17.280
all the contact information. But before that, I just want
1016
00:57:17.320 --> 00:57:18.400
to know what's next for you.
1017
00:57:18.440 --> 00:57:18.559
Now.
1018
00:57:18.639 --> 00:57:22.000
You you so you mentioned that you're you're going around
1019
00:57:21.960 --> 00:57:23.960
and you're you're still doing your lecturing, you want to
1020
00:57:23.960 --> 00:57:24.960
do other things.
1021
00:57:25.719 --> 00:57:29.039
Yeah, well we're gonna I mean, it really is. I
1022
00:57:29.079 --> 00:57:32.360
mean my life is insane schedule wise. So we're going
1023
00:57:32.440 --> 00:57:36.199
to wrap up the Vintage Voices tour at the end
1024
00:57:36.239 --> 00:57:38.559
of the year, and then next year I'm really going
1025
00:57:38.639 --> 00:57:41.039
to be focused. So we're going to still be showing
1026
00:57:41.079 --> 00:57:43.079
some of the content, but next year I'm really going
1027
00:57:43.119 --> 00:57:46.360
to be focusing on doing the these kind of deeper
1028
00:57:46.440 --> 00:57:50.280
dive documentaries that are all about aging, and they're all
1029
00:57:50.400 --> 00:57:53.119
you know, I'm not trying to make political states. It's
1030
00:57:53.159 --> 00:57:56.679
all about elevating agent. It's all about stories of people
1031
00:57:56.719 --> 00:57:59.199
that either live in senior living, people that work in
1032
00:57:59.239 --> 00:58:03.440
senior living, but really elevating all these stories that need
1033
00:58:03.519 --> 00:58:07.559
to be told in a really professional, well done way,
1034
00:58:07.599 --> 00:58:10.639
and we've done dozens of them so far. You can
1035
00:58:10.719 --> 00:58:14.840
see them at our our website as www dot Tailgate
1036
00:58:15.119 --> 00:58:18.559
for Joy dot com, t A L E g A
1037
00:58:18.800 --> 00:58:22.159
T E for Joy dot Com. And then I really
1038
00:58:22.360 --> 00:58:28.280
enjoy speaking, you know, all over the country to you know,
1039
00:58:28.320 --> 00:58:30.920
a lot of what I'm speaking is to senior living organizations,
1040
00:58:30.920 --> 00:58:33.199
but I'm trying to kind of branch out of that.
1041
00:58:33.599 --> 00:58:36.159
I'll still keep doing that, but I really want to
1042
00:58:36.239 --> 00:58:39.360
kind of get out to the the community at large
1043
00:58:39.559 --> 00:58:43.400
about these lessons I've learned, and you know, in my
1044
00:58:43.519 --> 00:58:47.239
own you know, however, I can do it myself, and
1045
00:58:47.320 --> 00:58:50.840
through the work we've done just really just kind of
1046
00:58:50.880 --> 00:58:54.320
help change the stigma of aging and for both for
1047
00:58:54.440 --> 00:58:58.840
the older adults themselves, but also for the people that
1048
00:58:59.079 --> 00:59:03.440
have all these fears and stereotypes and all this stuff
1049
00:59:03.440 --> 00:59:07.679
that I don't think has changed through Anti Aging Week
1050
00:59:07.840 --> 00:59:10.079
or all these things that are well intentioned. I think
1051
00:59:10.119 --> 00:59:13.960
it's you know, you watch the story of somebody that's
1052
00:59:14.000 --> 00:59:17.719
really made an impact, and it makes you not so
1053
00:59:17.960 --> 00:59:20.280
fearful I think of growing old, and I think the
1054
00:59:20.320 --> 00:59:23.960
work you're doing Ron speaks exactly to that as well.
1055
00:59:25.639 --> 00:59:28.280
So Jack, and people want to get in touch with you,
1056
00:59:28.280 --> 00:59:29.320
can I give me your email?
1057
00:59:29.599 --> 00:59:32.880
Oh yeah, email you know, you know, we love to
1058
00:59:32.880 --> 00:59:36.480
be getting folks following the Vintage Voices too, or that's
1059
00:59:36.519 --> 00:59:43.039
just Vintage Voices one hundred on Instagram or YouTube or Facebook,
1060
00:59:43.079 --> 00:59:47.800
TikTok whatever, and then yeah, email me and I you know,
1061
00:59:47.840 --> 00:59:51.639
if you've got I'm I'm working my way throughout the
1062
00:59:51.679 --> 00:59:57.360
whole from kind of the Carolinas up through the Northeast,
1063
00:59:57.599 --> 01:00:01.239
through the Upper Midwest and up in California. If somebody
1064
01:00:01.400 --> 01:00:03.679
that hears this has a great hundred year old I
1065
01:00:03.679 --> 01:00:05.559
can't guarantee it, but reach out to me. And if
1066
01:00:05.559 --> 01:00:08.280
there's a way to swing my van around and grab
1067
01:00:08.320 --> 01:00:10.039
the story, I'll do it.
1068
01:00:10.199 --> 01:00:13.320
Mm hmm okay. And you know you're on LinkedIn and
1069
01:00:13.360 --> 01:00:16.599
Facebook and people you've got lots of interesting posts there
1070
01:00:17.440 --> 01:00:20.599
and then they can watch your reels, which I've done,
1071
01:00:20.800 --> 01:00:22.480
you know, So that's a great way to get a
1072
01:00:22.519 --> 01:00:24.920
taste for all of the stuff you've done. So I
1073
01:00:25.000 --> 01:00:27.679
encourage people to go on that because they are joyful.
1074
01:00:28.239 --> 01:00:32.000
You do come away with a sense of gratitude and joy.
1075
01:00:32.239 --> 01:00:35.880
So so Thanks very much, Jack, it was a great
1076
01:00:36.480 --> 01:00:40.280
hour to talk with you. I really appreciate the terrific conversation,
1077
01:00:41.039 --> 01:00:48.440
provoking thoughts to myself about my aging and my overall mantra,
1078
01:00:48.480 --> 01:00:51.800
which is to help people age successfully whatever that means,
1079
01:00:51.920 --> 01:00:55.760
but basically to do it with a not ignoring the
1080
01:00:55.840 --> 01:01:00.480
challenges we have, but also appreciating the lifelong growth, you know,
1081
01:01:00.679 --> 01:01:01.400
the life loop.
1082
01:01:01.639 --> 01:01:05.480
So yeah, that's right, all right, thanks Royan. Great work
1083
01:01:05.519 --> 01:01:07.159
you're doing as well, and it's I'm honored to be
1084
01:01:07.440 --> 01:01:08.159
to be on your show.
1085
01:01:08.280 --> 01:01:08.719
All right.
1086
01:01:08.760 --> 01:01:10.760
So, folks, if you have questions for me, you want
1087
01:01:10.800 --> 01:01:12.880
to get in touch with me, I'm Rondot Rowell at
1088
01:01:12.920 --> 01:01:17.559
gmail dot com. Send me your comments for questions. Uh So,
1089
01:01:17.880 --> 01:01:21.920
until our next episode, keep moving forward forty five forward
1
00:00:00.960 --> 00:00:07.240
It's it's just fascinating to me the resiliency that people had.
2
00:00:08.000 --> 00:00:09.640
Seventy five percent of the people that we talked to
3
00:00:09.759 --> 00:00:13.320
grew up with no power, with no election, you know,
4
00:00:13.359 --> 00:00:18.199
no electricity half the time, no running water, bathrooms outside
5
00:00:18.239 --> 00:00:20.839
of it's a rural area. And the one thing they
6
00:00:20.920 --> 00:00:24.399
all have in common is nobody complained that. There's not
7
00:00:24.519 --> 00:00:28.839
one iota of complaining about So I mean my tolerance,
8
00:00:29.199 --> 00:00:32.920
this is like my tolerance level of young people complaining
9
00:00:32.960 --> 00:00:37.840
about stuff is extremely low. Shallow. Yeah, yeah, so.
10
00:00:37.799 --> 00:00:47.119
It Hello everyone, this is Ron Roell, the host of
11
00:00:47.159 --> 00:00:50.200
forty five Forward. They all love good storytellers, and the
12
00:00:50.240 --> 00:00:52.799
best storytellers are the ones with the most to tell.
13
00:00:53.359 --> 00:00:57.719
American seniors who have already lived long lives, but our
14
00:00:57.759 --> 00:01:00.799
older generations often don't get a chance to tell their stories.
15
00:01:01.320 --> 00:01:04.319
In fact, they're not even asked. In today's episode, I'll
16
00:01:04.359 --> 00:01:07.040
be talking with Jack Yorke, whose mission is to change
17
00:01:07.040 --> 00:01:09.920
all that. Jack has been immersed in the senior living
18
00:01:09.959 --> 00:01:12.640
world for more than twenty five years, and he is
19
00:01:12.640 --> 00:01:16.400
the founder and chief storyteller of Tailgate Now. He spends
20
00:01:16.439 --> 00:01:20.120
his days crisscrossing the country capturing the amazing often untold
21
00:01:20.200 --> 00:01:23.920
personal stories of seniors, including those of our oldest old
22
00:01:24.200 --> 00:01:27.879
one hundred year olds, our nation centenarians, through a project
23
00:01:27.879 --> 00:01:31.439
he calls Vintage Voices. The story of Jack and Tailgate
24
00:01:31.519 --> 00:01:35.439
is in a more amazing, heartfelt story in itself, and
25
00:01:35.480 --> 00:01:38.400
today I'm privileged to share this story with you. So
26
00:01:38.480 --> 00:01:41.280
now let's meet jack yorke Jack. Welcome to the show.
27
00:01:42.760 --> 00:01:45.640
All right, thanks Ron for having me on. I love
28
00:01:45.719 --> 00:01:49.760
your whole tagline of making the second half of life
29
00:01:49.840 --> 00:01:52.719
better than the first. That's that's awesome.
30
00:01:53.200 --> 00:01:56.719
Yeah, and you've done that. You've had multiple parts of
31
00:01:56.719 --> 00:01:59.959
your life, so let's start with that a little bit. Jackson,
32
00:02:00.159 --> 00:02:02.719
give us well. During the course of the of the
33
00:02:03.319 --> 00:02:07.439
our conversation, we'll talk about a lot of your different pivots,
34
00:02:07.799 --> 00:02:10.080
but just give us a sense. And I know you
35
00:02:10.080 --> 00:02:13.479
started out with the tech industry, you know, I guess
36
00:02:13.520 --> 00:02:17.439
selling semiconductors, and then you made a dramatic shift. Tell
37
00:02:17.520 --> 00:02:20.039
us about that beginning, and you're a bit about your
38
00:02:20.039 --> 00:02:21.240
origin story.
39
00:02:21.280 --> 00:02:26.840
Had a a you know, fairly conventional I guess, you know,
40
00:02:27.039 --> 00:02:31.719
corporate climbing life that I was in my mid twenties,
41
00:02:31.759 --> 00:02:35.080
started working in the Silica Valley for a company called Siliconics.
42
00:02:35.120 --> 00:02:38.319
That was in in as you said, in the semiconductor industry,
43
00:02:38.319 --> 00:02:41.840
and I uh, people in the senior living world have
44
00:02:41.879 --> 00:02:43.800
assumed I'm a tech guy, but I was always I
45
00:02:43.879 --> 00:02:46.479
was just a good sales and marketing guy in the
46
00:02:46.639 --> 00:02:50.599
in the in that in that technology world, and just
47
00:02:51.560 --> 00:02:54.319
never thinking of it as it was a good career,
48
00:02:54.439 --> 00:02:57.000
good you know, you check all the boxes of of
49
00:02:57.080 --> 00:02:59.759
what you're supposed to be doing, a great family and
50
00:03:00.199 --> 00:03:03.120
and all that stuff, and never thinking of it as
51
00:03:03.159 --> 00:03:07.280
a business. A really good friend of mine, Leslie Sweeney,
52
00:03:07.879 --> 00:03:11.319
in nineteen ninety eight, all of a sudden, that's a
53
00:03:11.319 --> 00:03:14.280
long that's a long time ago, she had the idea
54
00:03:14.400 --> 00:03:19.840
to donate some computers to a local assisted living community
55
00:03:19.400 --> 00:03:23.240
in California. And again, it was never an idea for
56
00:03:23.280 --> 00:03:25.319
a business. It was just she just noticed that it
57
00:03:25.360 --> 00:03:27.919
looked like a lot of the people in this community
58
00:03:27.960 --> 00:03:31.919
that she was pretty close to geographically that were pretty
59
00:03:31.960 --> 00:03:34.560
lonely or they said, just seem kind of bored, and
60
00:03:34.639 --> 00:03:38.439
so we just just donated some computers. She worked with
61
00:03:38.520 --> 00:03:41.840
the residents for a year and it was just kind
62
00:03:41.840 --> 00:03:44.639
of a cool thing to do, and then a very
63
00:03:45.360 --> 00:03:49.199
spiritual thing happened that my mom. We were having an
64
00:03:49.240 --> 00:03:53.159
eighty the surprise birthday party from my mom in nineteen
65
00:03:53.240 --> 00:03:55.960
ninety eight, and towards the end of the party, she
66
00:03:56.080 --> 00:03:59.039
started not feeling the little great, you know, just as
67
00:03:59.039 --> 00:04:00.960
the party was winding out, she was getting a little dizzy.
68
00:04:01.039 --> 00:04:05.000
So we just had a precautionary calling ambulance. They come
69
00:04:05.039 --> 00:04:07.960
out and they look at her and that not overly concerned,
70
00:04:07.960 --> 00:04:09.439
but that well, maybe we should take her to the
71
00:04:09.479 --> 00:04:13.039
hospital just to be safe. And it turned out that
72
00:04:13.120 --> 00:04:16.680
she you know, this is such a joyful story, but
73
00:04:16.759 --> 00:04:20.160
it sounds so sad when you say that she wound
74
00:04:20.279 --> 00:04:24.399
up having a massive stroke in the ambulance on the
75
00:04:24.399 --> 00:04:28.600
way of the hospital and died the next morning. But
76
00:04:28.720 --> 00:04:32.639
it was her spirit was telling me to do something
77
00:04:32.639 --> 00:04:35.920
with my life that had purpose and had meaning, and
78
00:04:36.000 --> 00:04:38.000
it was kind of her last gift to me. And
79
00:04:38.079 --> 00:04:42.480
so without having any any idea, I mean, I'd worked
80
00:04:42.480 --> 00:04:45.399
for the same company for almost fifteen sixteen years, so
81
00:04:45.839 --> 00:04:48.279
I just completely jumped off a cliff to start a
82
00:04:48.319 --> 00:04:51.279
company called It's Never Too Late with Leslie and my
83
00:04:51.480 --> 00:04:55.079
and my brother Tom and had you know, usually people
84
00:04:55.079 --> 00:05:00.839
start companies, they have some semblance of a you know,
85
00:05:00.920 --> 00:05:03.319
you know, a skill set in whatever that industry is.
86
00:05:03.360 --> 00:05:07.319
We we had no idea on any level of what
87
00:05:07.360 --> 00:05:09.480
we were doing, which in some ways was bad and
88
00:05:09.519 --> 00:05:11.920
maybe some ways was good. But that was the whole
89
00:05:11.920 --> 00:05:14.920
inception of Iron two l and, which was all about
90
00:05:14.920 --> 00:05:17.399
bringing technology to older adults. And that's kind of how
91
00:05:17.839 --> 00:05:21.079
the whole major pivot happened and how everything else since
92
00:05:21.120 --> 00:05:22.199
then has followed.
93
00:05:22.519 --> 00:05:25.040
Yeah, so then you decided that on the name is
94
00:05:25.120 --> 00:05:28.040
never too late with Is that for you or.
95
00:05:28.000 --> 00:05:30.839
For Yeah, it was because it was all about it
96
00:05:30.879 --> 00:05:34.240
was all about just you know, it's it's nineteen ninety nine,
97
00:05:34.519 --> 00:05:38.879
so the whole computing you know, Windows had just been
98
00:05:38.920 --> 00:05:40.639
out for a while. I mean, the whole computing world
99
00:05:40.720 --> 00:05:45.480
in general was just starting much less the uh you know,
100
00:05:45.560 --> 00:05:48.199
much less older adults, much less nursing now, it was
101
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much less dementia. I mean, we were ahead of the
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curve on pretty much every level. But it was just
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you know, with just observationally is really kind of how
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the whole idea started. Observationally, you go into a senior
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living community and you'd see these you know, none of
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this is meant to say anything demeaning about the incredibly
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dedicated staff that work in senior living. But you know,
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you go back to nineteen ninety nine and you have
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these people that are you know, the residents that are
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you know, teachers and welders and doctors and lawyers and
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whatever the heck their their life was. They had lived
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completely rich lives and you'd look at the you know,
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at what then was called activity programming, and it was
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it was just so demeaning to people that had lived
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such full lives. And again it's not not at all
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a reflection of the of the people that worked the
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internest that just didn't have any tools. So you know,
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you have rooms full of you know, old VHS tapes
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and you're, you know, you're just you're just trying to
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keep people. It was, it was, there was just nothing,
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it was nothing really aging about it, and it just
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seemed like there's got to be a better way to
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do this. And that was That's just kind of how
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it started. The fact that we didn't know the industry,
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the fact that we didn't know that we didn't know
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what we were doing, it made us just ask questions
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of people. And there were so many people along the
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road that really helped guide the product development. They saw
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that our hearts were in the right place, and and
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it was just it was just really a you know,
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just kind of an organic beginning to a company in
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a in an industry that was starting to look at computing,
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but only through the lens of medical records and clinical applications.
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So we were, you know, you go to a conference,
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we were like out in left field doing all this
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crazy stuff. So we were way ahead of a curve.
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And like I said, it was either it was probably
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to our benefit that we had no idea what we
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were what we were talking about.
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Yeah, well it's sometimes you're right, it's good not to know.
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Yeah, yeah, exactly.
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But yeah, so of course I love your story because
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my show is forty five forward, Yeah, right, right right.
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It focuses on the fact that it is never too late,
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you know, And and many of my guests Jack, you know,
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have have had multiple careers, you know, after middle age,
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and I think that's you know, that's the point of
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it is that you can keep growing and learning things.
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And I mean we've gone through some tremendous changes. I mean,
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as I think back to my early days as a
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writer as a journalist, I'm like a little stunned I'm like, okay,
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so we were using typewriters and I was making copies
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using carbon paper.
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I was, you know it is it's so, you know,
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I want to do a you know, one of my
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many off the wall ideas. I'd love to do some
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kind of a contest of twenty five year olds to
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give them a street and Smith's map guide and tell
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them how and they kind of leave the cell phone
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home and like drive from you give them an address
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and they got to figure out how to get there.
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I mean, it's a there's and you know that's what's
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obviously we're gonna get into the Honeyrolds. You know, you
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you get into the world of folks that are centinarians,
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and you get into slide rules, and you know, it's sure,
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it's just kind of one step back, but it's the
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same thing. It's just people's aversion to change and doing
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things differently and and kind of being on the edge
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to to do it right.
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Yeah. So we'll talk about a lot of things, but
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I want to just talk a little bit more about
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it's never too late and uh, you know which you
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know now I guess is life loop right, that's it's yeah,
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And about so just a little bit about how how
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you how you do this? How do you go into communities?
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What sort of things do you do with them? And
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and how do you because you do a lot of things.
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Yeah, it's kind of like Iron two L and it's
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it's now you know, to my to my delight, it's
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a it's a it's a much it's become a much
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more sophisticated, broader product. It's part of a company called
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life Loop and it was but like I said before,
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the ion Tel, the conception was it was just trying
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to bring two older adults that did not kind of
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a combination of they didn't have a lot of computer experience,
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but they also were dealing with different levels of physical
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or cognitive decline. How do you bring them the same
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kind of things that we get used to with the computer.
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It's it really I don't know. I don't think it
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was that that that complicated of an idea, just through
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we were way ahead of the curve with touch screen.
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So it's touchscreen technology and to try to let people
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be able to get to without having to really know
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how to use a computer that just through the touch
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screen and well laid out content, they could get to
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just sections based of travel and spirituality and games and
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you know, whatever they want, just whatever. You know, what
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do we do? We want to listen to music, we
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want to I always use the analogy I'm a big
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I'm a big Springsteen guy. And it's not like when
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I hit eighty, I'm gonna all of a sudden want
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the carpenters. You know, you just we all have our
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passions right that our bodies change. We may change a
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little physically or cognitalant, we don't change the We don't
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lose the thirst to stay connected and engage with things
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that are meaningful. So Iantua is just all about trying
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to bring that what was relevant to that person and
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make it easy either for them to get to individually
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or for an activity professional to be able to guide
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their way to the content in a group context. And
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it took, and it took forever to take off. The
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first ten years of the company was more just trying
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to get people to open up to the ideas of
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computers and residents and dementia more than you're selling against
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a competitor. Was just trying to change mindsets and and
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I'm super proud of the fact that I think we
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helped did uh you know, help we helped move the
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needle of just kind of that common sense, the equation
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that you know what, everybody should have access to the
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same kind of things that we take for granted with technology.
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Yeah, and I love this approach because I mean it
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relates to actually who's using it and why are they
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using it? So, you know, I've been involved, you know,
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with ARP and a lot of advocacy groups for seniors,
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and you know, people talking, well, how do we teach
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people seniors that use technology? Well, the same way we
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teach anybody about things like like why is why is
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this relevant to you? Why would you use it? You know,
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what do you need it for? Not just oh well
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I'll learn how to use all these things and program
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and so forth. You know. So you're you're you know,
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you're just the fact that you you know, it's it's well,
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in some ways, it's customer driven. You're looking at who
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is the customer here? It's it's it's the senior and
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why do they need it? And and also you know,
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breaking through this myth of like oh well, no, seniors,
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they can't use it. You know, used to paper and
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pencils and stuff like that and no, you know, but
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you you needed your approach of really paying attention to them.
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In the early days and that this is obviously dramatically change,
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but in the early days, and this is you know,
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it kind of reminds me. It reminds me. It reminds
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me so viscerally of a moment I had when I
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was a kid and where I was a teenager, late teens,
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early you know, early twenties, think that I was working
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for my dad, and my dad was a civil engineer,
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and I remember this guy coming in with a Texas
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instrument computer and my dad's a total slide roll guy,
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you know, you know, grew up with that, and he
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was so resistant to this calculator, even though it was
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so I'm just sit there looking at the outs. I go, Dad,
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that seems to be a lot easier than that thing
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that you have. And I think a lot of the
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early resistance to iron two L and it was almost subconscious,
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I think, But the a person that had done a
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job a certain way for twenty years, all of a sudden,
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here's this guy showing up that has no knowledge of
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senior living and no knowledge of the you know, intricacies
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of aging and dementia, just saying, you know it, it's
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a lot easier just to you know, touch this. You know,
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if you're showing, if you've got a resident who you've
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built this activity about going to France and the person
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wants to go to Germany, instead of having to completely
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redo your whole day, just touch this button instead of
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that button. It's a heck of a lot easier than
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all the work you've done. But there was such resistance
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because it was just a different way for people to
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do their job. And so it you know, you'd like
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anything else, you have people that are willing to take
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a risk, a little bit of early adopters, a whole
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bunch of people that were so beneficial to us early on,
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And it took a lot of years, but it ultimately
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wound up being, you know, succeeding beyond my wildest and
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I'm Leslie and my unfortunately my brother died the other
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founder early on. So it was a tough first ten
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years of company, but wound up being like I said,
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very successful.
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Yeah, but ten years. I mean so persistence is a
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lot of it too. I mean, nobody likes change.
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It's it's funny. I don't want to get off on
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a tangent, but a lot of why I talk a
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lot to people, to young people that are entrepreneurs starting businesses,
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and as much as anything else, the reason that I
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in two L succeeded was when I was twenty five,
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I started saving twenty ten between ten and twenty percent.
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I would save of what I made and put it
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into no load mutual funds and just every month, put
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money in every month. And I'm forty and it got
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too close to a million dollars and that's what we
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used to launch I in two L. Every dime went away,
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but I didn't have have to go look for until
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about ten years later. I didn't have to go look
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for any other capital and didn't have to answer to
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anybody else. So I'm I'm a firm belief. You know,
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I've been more the like Jimmy Stewart model of starting
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a company. But half the people I talk to you
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don't even know who Jimmy Stewart is ordered to come
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up with you with a new analogy. But it was,
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you know, I think part of it just growing up
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with depression area. You know, air of parents than you know.
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You just are You're conservative and you save money and
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that's kind of how the whole thing happened from a
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financial standpoint, right right.
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Okay, So we're going to take a quick break jack Folks.
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When we come back, when we're talking much more with
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jack Yorke, the founder of Tailgate. So don't go anywhere.
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Are you caring for an aging loved one? It can
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00:16:50.960 --> 00:16:54.200
feel overwhelming, but you don't have to do it alone.
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Ron's book, The Caregiving Navigator is a step by step
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00:16:58.759 --> 00:17:03.679
guide designed to help you plan, prepare, and provide compassionate
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care with confidence, from organizing family conversations to navigating long
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00:17:09.720 --> 00:17:14.559
term care and finding support for yourself the caregiver. It's
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00:17:14.759 --> 00:17:19.759
all here. Find The Caregiving Navigator now on Amazon and
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00:17:19.839 --> 00:17:22.359
take the first step toward peace of mind.
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Welcome back, folks, to forty five Forward. This is your host,
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Ron Rowell, and we're talking today with jack Yorke, the
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founder of Tailgate, whose mission is to capture and tell
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the stories of our best storytellers, America's seniors. So before
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the break, we were talking about Dak's earlier career with
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It's Never Too Late and how I want to now
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get into how you developed and moved into Tailgate. How
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did this transition take place.
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Yeah, when so as I and two L got bigger,
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one of the you know, I did a lot. I could.
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I could spend a lot of time talking about mistakes
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that I made, and you know, as any entrepreneur can
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can tell you that. But the one thing I did,
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I think do well was I was very self aware
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of what, you know, what I was good at when
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I was not good at. And I think I was
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a good CEO for a company of you know, ten,
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fifteen twenty people. As I in two L got larger,
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you know, and more successful, I knew that I wasn't
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the right CEO to kind of take it to the
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next level. Didn't I didn't lose the passion for the product,
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But it just takes a different skill set to kind
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of go from point, you know, from point B to
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point C. And I think a lot of people are
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their egos get in the way of letting go a
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little bit. And so as the year before COVID, I
341
00:18:57.359 --> 00:19:01.519
was trying to do some things that were more you know,
342
00:19:01.680 --> 00:19:04.200
almost more kind of public. And I was still passionate,
343
00:19:04.279 --> 00:19:07.000
still working for Ryan two out, but I did I
344
00:19:07.079 --> 00:19:08.920
wanted to kind of get out of the operational role
345
00:19:09.039 --> 00:19:11.920
and just do more really just more out in the
346
00:19:11.960 --> 00:19:15.440
field ethics, living communities and this that, and so we
347
00:19:15.759 --> 00:19:20.000
we came up with the idea I turned sixty. This
348
00:19:20.039 --> 00:19:22.240
is five and a half years ago. I turned sixty,
349
00:19:22.720 --> 00:19:26.200
and I in twell turned twenty, and so we invented
350
00:19:26.240 --> 00:19:29.839
this thing called the sixty twenty Tour that I drove
351
00:19:29.880 --> 00:19:32.400
around at a van with go pro cameras, which is
352
00:19:32.400 --> 00:19:34.799
what I'm doing now. We'll get to that later, but
353
00:19:35.640 --> 00:19:39.160
we it was it was really like carpool karaoke. We
354
00:19:39.160 --> 00:19:41.519
couldn't call it that from a license at stepoint, so
355
00:19:41.559 --> 00:19:44.799
we called it cruising and croonin. But I would we
356
00:19:44.799 --> 00:19:47.400
would just go to communities and we would get resonance
357
00:19:47.480 --> 00:19:50.440
to drive around, you know, drive around the neighborhood with me,
358
00:19:50.519 --> 00:19:53.640
and we'd sing songs and and just you know, just
359
00:19:53.720 --> 00:19:58.359
have really kind of a just wherever, wherever the conversation
360
00:19:58.400 --> 00:20:00.000
would go would go. And it was the first time
361
00:20:00.039 --> 00:20:03.599
I'm you know, my I in twel career. Not that
362
00:20:03.720 --> 00:20:05.559
this is a bad thing, but I would, you know,
363
00:20:05.599 --> 00:20:08.039
I'd lug in a demo unit and I'm trying to
364
00:20:08.079 --> 00:20:10.920
talk to the executive director and the therapists and the
365
00:20:10.960 --> 00:20:13.519
activity world from to sell the product and show what
366
00:20:13.559 --> 00:20:15.920
it was, you know, say hello to the residents, and
367
00:20:16.160 --> 00:20:18.559
but I didn't really interact with them. And then, you know,
368
00:20:18.599 --> 00:20:20.400
then you leave and you go to the next community,
369
00:20:20.440 --> 00:20:23.279
and all of a sudden, with the sixty twenty tour,
370
00:20:23.960 --> 00:20:26.039
it was really the first time that I really had
371
00:20:26.119 --> 00:20:30.839
had more deeper relations or conversations with the residents. And
372
00:20:30.839 --> 00:20:33.920
it was like, the guys people are just so cool
373
00:20:34.720 --> 00:20:37.920
and they're so thirsty to be heard, and that was
374
00:20:38.000 --> 00:20:41.160
kind of the the It just kind of planted the
375
00:20:41.240 --> 00:20:45.119
seed of there's got to be a bigger and better
376
00:20:45.160 --> 00:20:49.039
way to do this, and then when COVID hit, it was,
377
00:20:49.559 --> 00:20:51.759
you know, it's kind of it was kind of odd
378
00:20:51.839 --> 00:20:58.200
because everything I in Twell was about was really so
379
00:20:58.519 --> 00:21:02.160
ideal for cod because it was all about trying to
380
00:21:02.200 --> 00:21:06.079
connect residents to the outside world, to their families, to
381
00:21:06.440 --> 00:21:09.720
you know, to what mattered to them. And so, you know,
382
00:21:09.920 --> 00:21:16.119
just in blunt capitalistic terms, COVID probably tripled the valuation
383
00:21:16.519 --> 00:21:18.680
of I N two L and all of a sudden,
384
00:21:18.680 --> 00:21:21.799
a lot of a lot of of private equity companies
385
00:21:21.799 --> 00:21:24.039
were interested in it. And it really it really wasn't
386
00:21:24.160 --> 00:21:28.000
that we were necessarily looking to sell the company, but
387
00:21:28.079 --> 00:21:29.880
it was It's kind of and it was like, well,
388
00:21:29.920 --> 00:21:32.559
maybe maybe this is the right time to do that,
389
00:21:33.359 --> 00:21:36.680
and so we we were acquired through a private equity company,
390
00:21:36.799 --> 00:21:40.160
became part of a company Life Loop, and and I'm
391
00:21:40.200 --> 00:21:42.599
still involved with it. I love what it's turned into.
392
00:21:42.720 --> 00:21:46.480
Like I said earlier on It's It's it's the the
393
00:21:46.480 --> 00:21:49.599
the infusion of capital and of life Loop has allowed
394
00:21:49.599 --> 00:21:53.079
the product to become a lot broader, and it's now
395
00:21:53.119 --> 00:21:55.279
tied into AI and doing all. I mean, it's it's
396
00:21:55.359 --> 00:22:01.599
totally thriving. But uh, but that allowed me to my
397
00:22:02.599 --> 00:22:04.720
I never lost the passion for Iyan twelve, but I
398
00:22:04.759 --> 00:22:08.160
really felt like, almost like when I started I and twelve.
399
00:22:08.200 --> 00:22:09.920
It sounds kind of hokey, but it's true that it
400
00:22:09.960 --> 00:22:13.079
really felt like a calling to me. When I just
401
00:22:13.160 --> 00:22:17.680
saw the isolation and how technology was just leaving people behind,
402
00:22:18.000 --> 00:22:19.920
I just felt the same way. I had kind of
403
00:22:19.920 --> 00:22:23.680
the same feeling with Tailgate that or just in general,
404
00:22:23.759 --> 00:22:27.640
that just a calling to do a deeper job of
405
00:22:27.720 --> 00:22:31.559
trying to capture the stories of some of these folks.
406
00:22:31.599 --> 00:22:37.160
And so the initial launch of Tailgate was a forty
407
00:22:37.240 --> 00:22:40.559
two foot trailer that we had and that's kind of
408
00:22:40.559 --> 00:22:43.759
how the name tailgate came because it was ta it's
409
00:22:43.799 --> 00:22:47.440
spelled ta l e because you're capturing stories. But it
410
00:22:47.519 --> 00:22:49.720
was initially a lot of tailgate parties that we had
411
00:22:49.720 --> 00:22:52.599
this forty two foot trailer that we'd bring all over
412
00:22:52.640 --> 00:22:56.000
the country and we built a recording studio inside the trailer,
413
00:22:56.519 --> 00:22:58.599
and so we'd show up at a community and have
414
00:22:58.720 --> 00:23:02.680
a whole of activities and the tailgate party, and then
415
00:23:02.720 --> 00:23:05.799
we'd be capturing stories on the inside. And I just
416
00:23:06.079 --> 00:23:09.640
I fell in love with doing it. But I also felt.
417
00:23:09.359 --> 00:23:16.799
Like the the the the sanctity of capturing the stories
418
00:23:17.720 --> 00:23:20.480
was getting lost in this big party, and it really
419
00:23:20.640 --> 00:23:22.160
wasn't all about the party.
420
00:23:22.680 --> 00:23:25.680
And it was also the other, the other practical side
421
00:23:25.680 --> 00:23:28.200
of it is that everybody else in the company, like
422
00:23:28.240 --> 00:23:31.720
had lives back at home and they wanted I was
423
00:23:31.720 --> 00:23:33.519
pretty comfortable being on the road all the time, and
424
00:23:33.599 --> 00:23:35.599
so there was a little bit of like, you know what,
425
00:23:35.599 --> 00:23:37.759
what's a different way to do this, And so that's
426
00:23:37.839 --> 00:23:39.319
kind of what it's evolved to now. But that's how
427
00:23:39.319 --> 00:23:43.720
it started, and and it was the same. It's it's almos.
428
00:23:43.759 --> 00:23:48.160
I mean, really, the patron saint of me is probably
429
00:23:49.519 --> 00:23:52.680
Leonardo DiCaprio and catch me if you can, because now
430
00:23:52.720 --> 00:23:55.480
I'm a you know, now I'm a documentary film producer,
431
00:23:55.559 --> 00:23:59.440
and before I was a tech entrepreneur, both of which
432
00:23:59.480 --> 00:24:02.519
I had appo no business doing. But you you know,
433
00:24:02.559 --> 00:24:05.039
you just jump in and figure stuff out and all
434
00:24:05.079 --> 00:24:07.319
of a sudden you're you know, you start making a work.
435
00:24:07.640 --> 00:24:10.480
Yeah, So what did you have a moment when when
436
00:24:10.480 --> 00:24:14.599
you just really realize, like, wow, people really have a
437
00:24:14.640 --> 00:24:17.480
thirst to tell stories and as they've told me before,
438
00:24:17.799 --> 00:24:20.119
sort of uplifting stories. There are stories of their lives
439
00:24:20.480 --> 00:24:23.599
and no one was asking them. Was there sort of
440
00:24:23.599 --> 00:24:24.799
an epiphany.
441
00:24:27.319 --> 00:24:29.440
Part of it for me? You know, this is also
442
00:24:29.480 --> 00:24:32.079
going back to the idea of starting it is that
443
00:24:33.079 --> 00:24:36.680
when I was a kid, I you know, and I
444
00:24:36.720 --> 00:24:38.319
was talking to this before. With my dad and like
445
00:24:38.359 --> 00:24:40.799
the latter part of high school or the part of college,
446
00:24:40.839 --> 00:24:43.240
I worked for my dad and in the summers and
447
00:24:43.319 --> 00:24:47.400
so we would drive every day back and forth. We
448
00:24:47.440 --> 00:24:52.240
would drive about thirty minutes both ways, and after he died,
449
00:24:52.359 --> 00:24:54.720
it just it kind of you know, it's the classic
450
00:24:54.799 --> 00:24:58.359
story that you find out these things that your parents
451
00:24:58.359 --> 00:25:01.279
did after they die. So with my dad, had you know,
452
00:25:01.279 --> 00:25:04.559
I knew about his you know, I knew he had
453
00:25:04.599 --> 00:25:06.599
been a part of World War Two. I knew, you know,
454
00:25:06.759 --> 00:25:10.799
just very rudimentary about what he did. And I found
455
00:25:10.799 --> 00:25:13.440
out after god, all this really you know, incredibly cool
456
00:25:13.480 --> 00:25:15.599
stuff that he did that I you know, I sat
457
00:25:15.640 --> 00:25:18.039
there in the car with him, you know, not, you know,
458
00:25:18.359 --> 00:25:20.480
not one day, you know, I asked, you know, we
459
00:25:20.640 --> 00:25:24.559
talk all day about the Dodgers, about Nebraska Cornhusker football,
460
00:25:24.599 --> 00:25:26.839
you know, about this stuff that with you know, with
461
00:25:26.960 --> 00:25:30.160
the father son conversations. But I never asked him. You know,
462
00:25:30.160 --> 00:25:32.759
what was it like being a twenty year old kid
463
00:25:33.319 --> 00:25:35.519
with a civil engineering degree and all of a sudden
464
00:25:35.519 --> 00:25:39.319
you're on a plane going to India to build landing
465
00:25:39.440 --> 00:25:42.640
strips in this thing called the Burma Road. And so
466
00:25:44.400 --> 00:25:47.519
I that always bothered me. And so I think part
467
00:25:47.559 --> 00:25:50.880
of the you know, almost my subconsciousness with Tailgate is
468
00:25:50.920 --> 00:25:55.559
that every every person's story we capture is kind of
469
00:25:55.559 --> 00:25:59.240
a you know, almost a subconscious tribute to my father,
470
00:25:59.319 --> 00:26:02.279
whose story you know, you know, I never I never
471
00:26:02.319 --> 00:26:04.839
did capture. But you know, going back to your question,
472
00:26:06.799 --> 00:26:08.880
I don't think it was like a like a moment,
473
00:26:09.079 --> 00:26:13.759
It just it was like a daily occurrence well, actually,
474
00:26:13.759 --> 00:26:15.440
you know what, as I think about, there was I
475
00:26:15.480 --> 00:26:18.240
would say a moment. There was two or three times
476
00:26:18.359 --> 00:26:22.960
where people would come up to me after an interview
477
00:26:24.160 --> 00:26:28.079
and say how much the interview, how much it meant
478
00:26:28.119 --> 00:26:30.400
to them, And one one guy in particular, it's funny,
479
00:26:30.400 --> 00:26:32.519
I haven't thought about this forever, and just your question
480
00:26:32.880 --> 00:26:34.480
triggered it for me. I was in a really cool
481
00:26:34.519 --> 00:26:38.599
community called C. C. Young outside of Dallas, Texas, and
482
00:26:39.400 --> 00:26:43.720
did the interview in the trailer and this guy, you know,
483
00:26:43.759 --> 00:26:46.279
I'm leaving the building and we had spent maybe a
484
00:26:46.319 --> 00:26:48.519
half hour with four or five different residents. This guy
485
00:26:48.599 --> 00:26:50.920
was one of them, and this real, you know, tall guy,
486
00:26:50.960 --> 00:26:54.319
and he kind of waves me to come upstairs. Beautiful community.
487
00:26:54.519 --> 00:26:56.720
He waves me to come upstairs to say goodbye to him,
488
00:26:56.720 --> 00:26:58.839
and I and I go up to him and and
489
00:26:58.880 --> 00:27:01.240
I'm just say goodbye, and he just he looked me
490
00:27:01.279 --> 00:27:03.799
in the eye and just said, you know, you made
491
00:27:03.880 --> 00:27:08.119
me feel relevant today and I don't always feel relevant.
492
00:27:08.640 --> 00:27:12.680
And it hit me, you know, just that comment hit
493
00:27:12.759 --> 00:27:17.079
me that you know this is more important then maybe
494
00:27:17.160 --> 00:27:20.599
I'm thinking it is. And then I would hear people
495
00:27:20.680 --> 00:27:25.200
say this has happened a lot and when it first
496
00:27:25.680 --> 00:27:28.640
you know, when when I first heard it, it made
497
00:27:28.680 --> 00:27:31.440
me feel really good, and as time has gone, it's
498
00:27:31.480 --> 00:27:33.720
actually made me feel a little more sad than good.
499
00:27:33.799 --> 00:27:36.880
And that is people that have said that in the
500
00:27:37.000 --> 00:27:39.119
drives that we do, which we'll talk about in a
501
00:27:39.640 --> 00:27:42.960
few minutes, but you'll wind up talk you know, driving
502
00:27:42.960 --> 00:27:46.440
somebody around capturing their story and the personal again will
503
00:27:46.440 --> 00:27:49.000
tell you that it's the most meaningful thing that they've
504
00:27:49.000 --> 00:27:52.079
done in the last year. And when I first heard that,
505
00:27:52.119 --> 00:27:55.200
it was, wow, that is really cool. And then it's
506
00:27:55.240 --> 00:27:59.400
just like, you know that that's a sad thing that
507
00:27:59.599 --> 00:28:02.319
they're not And I think it's just it's not that
508
00:28:02.400 --> 00:28:04.480
it's me, and it's not that it's fan fair. I
509
00:28:04.559 --> 00:28:09.640
just think that it's somebody is is authentically taking the
510
00:28:09.759 --> 00:28:15.119
time to ask questions of somebody that hasn't that's lived
511
00:28:15.119 --> 00:28:19.000
a full life, yeah, and is rarely asked those questions.
512
00:28:19.079 --> 00:28:22.160
Yeah, you know, it's interesting Jack, as you're talking, I'm
513
00:28:22.200 --> 00:28:26.519
thinking back to my childhood too, and and also and
514
00:28:26.519 --> 00:28:28.799
and you know, I know we're now into tailgate, but
515
00:28:29.160 --> 00:28:31.319
but going back to life loop. To me, there is
516
00:28:31.359 --> 00:28:33.920
sort of a life loop to this. So you know,
517
00:28:34.039 --> 00:28:37.880
you think about being a kid. And what's the most
518
00:28:37.920 --> 00:28:40.799
important thing that for kids is for them to feel
519
00:28:40.839 --> 00:28:43.359
listened to, you know, and and you know the adults
520
00:28:43.400 --> 00:28:46.119
are in their own world doing this, and so there's
521
00:28:46.160 --> 00:28:49.039
this I think this long like I just want to
522
00:28:49.039 --> 00:28:50.839
be listened to, and I think that sort of carries
523
00:28:50.839 --> 00:28:53.039
through a lot of life. And now you're at the
524
00:28:53.160 --> 00:28:56.119
end of your life loop ord or further down the road,
525
00:28:56.559 --> 00:28:59.359
and again, you know, you've got this full life and
526
00:28:59.680 --> 00:29:02.000
no one listening. We're not you and I have talked
527
00:29:02.000 --> 00:29:05.839
about this before. We're not a society of listeners or talkers,
528
00:29:05.880 --> 00:29:10.000
which is okay, but what people wanted frequently is to
529
00:29:10.000 --> 00:29:13.240
be listened to, because that what makes you relevant.
530
00:29:14.839 --> 00:29:18.920
Yeah, you know, it's it's talkers. And it's also you know,
531
00:29:18.960 --> 00:29:22.319
we're a society of just sucked into our little reality,
532
00:29:22.359 --> 00:29:25.160
into a cell phone. And and again this is something
533
00:29:25.160 --> 00:29:27.920
we can talk about later, but it's a it's you know,
534
00:29:27.960 --> 00:29:31.440
a passion of mine is trying to put together this
535
00:29:32.480 --> 00:29:37.279
isolation of the older adults paired with these high school
536
00:29:37.319 --> 00:29:41.680
students who were so you know, they have their own
537
00:29:41.880 --> 00:29:45.720
version of loneliness, which is just it's just wrapped in
538
00:29:45.759 --> 00:29:49.319
a different box and it and just looking at at
539
00:29:49.440 --> 00:29:52.000
just what and we can talk about that later about
540
00:29:52.359 --> 00:29:55.079
about when about some of the things that have really
541
00:29:55.279 --> 00:29:59.759
struck me as as changes that I think that's much
542
00:29:59.839 --> 00:30:03.680
change is just I think things that senior living communities can
543
00:30:03.759 --> 00:30:09.799
do to enhance this whole issue or bring to light
544
00:30:09.839 --> 00:30:10.680
this whole issue.
545
00:30:11.160 --> 00:30:14.920
Yeah, yeah, so Jack, we're going to take another quick break,
546
00:30:15.279 --> 00:30:17.079
but folks, we have a lot more to talk about,
547
00:30:17.240 --> 00:30:20.160
so don't go away. We'll be talking much more with
548
00:30:20.279 --> 00:30:23.720
Jack Yorck, the founder of Tailgate, and now we'll get
549
00:30:23.720 --> 00:30:27.680
a transition to his stories about how he actually collects
550
00:30:27.759 --> 00:30:29.759
these stories. So we'll be right back.
551
00:30:31.119 --> 00:30:33.599
Do you like what you're hearing? Well, we've got plenty
552
00:30:33.640 --> 00:30:38.000
more where that came from. Head over to forty five
553
00:30:38.200 --> 00:30:43.079
forward dot org, where you'll find a full archive of
554
00:30:43.119 --> 00:30:47.119
over two hundred episodes of the forty five Forward podcast,
555
00:30:48.039 --> 00:30:56.160
all hosted by Ron. Each week, Ron talks with fascinating guests, experts, advocates,
556
00:30:56.160 --> 00:31:00.200
and everyday folks, sharing insights and stories to help you
557
00:31:00.240 --> 00:31:04.400
live a better, fuller life in your second half. We
558
00:31:04.480 --> 00:31:06.400
cover everything from.
559
00:31:06.119 --> 00:31:11.319
Health and care giving to careers, relationships, and finding purpose.
560
00:31:11.920 --> 00:31:18.119
Whatever helps you move forward with clarity and confidence. That's
561
00:31:18.240 --> 00:31:23.240
forty five Forward dot org. Check it out and keep
562
00:31:23.319 --> 00:31:26.119
moving forward forty five Forward.
563
00:31:33.279 --> 00:31:36.160
Welcome back, folks to forty five Forward. I'm Ron Roell,
564
00:31:36.759 --> 00:31:39.559
your host once again. We're talking to Jack Yorck, the
565
00:31:39.599 --> 00:31:44.839
founder of Tailgate, and about his passion for telling the
566
00:31:44.839 --> 00:31:48.119
stories of seniors really is the backbone of our of
567
00:31:48.119 --> 00:31:51.920
our society and our culture. So Jack, let's get into
568
00:31:51.920 --> 00:31:53.680
a little bit more about how you do this. I
569
00:31:53.720 --> 00:31:56.000
know that you've about how you do your interviews. I've
570
00:31:56.000 --> 00:31:59.000
seen some of your interviews where you're actually interviewing folks
571
00:31:59.000 --> 00:32:02.759
in the car. I found fascinating and remind me a
572
00:32:02.759 --> 00:32:04.880
little bit of that you know, that Jerry Seinfeld bit,
573
00:32:04.960 --> 00:32:09.279
you know, coffee in the car with comedians, you know. Yeah, yeah,
574
00:32:09.319 --> 00:32:10.599
but I like your version better.
575
00:32:11.359 --> 00:32:14.359
Yeah yeah. Well, I mean there's a couple like the
576
00:32:14.480 --> 00:32:17.359
Tailgate there. There's a couple of different things that we're doing,
577
00:32:17.599 --> 00:32:23.200
and one of them is we do really cool documentaries
578
00:32:23.400 --> 00:32:25.160
and why don't we can talk abou that in a minute.
579
00:32:25.240 --> 00:32:29.160
And then we're also we have a great author in
580
00:32:29.240 --> 00:32:31.680
our staff. Her name is Aubrey Road, and she's writing
581
00:32:31.680 --> 00:32:33.519
a book about some of these people that we meet
582
00:32:33.559 --> 00:32:36.119
along the way. So, I mean, everything we're generically doing
583
00:32:36.880 --> 00:32:40.519
is tied to just elevating aging and as a second
584
00:32:40.599 --> 00:32:43.400
tier way kind of elevating senior living and trying to
585
00:32:43.480 --> 00:32:46.559
kind of tweak that. But as far as the what
586
00:32:46.680 --> 00:32:51.960
a lot of people see is the uh the Vintage Voices,
587
00:32:52.039 --> 00:32:55.319
what we call Vintage Voice. It's a partnered partnership between
588
00:32:55.400 --> 00:32:57.799
Tailgate and the company called Dash Media that does great
589
00:32:57.839 --> 00:33:01.440
work with social media and see living. And so that's
590
00:33:01.480 --> 00:33:03.720
where I do a lot of the you know, a
591
00:33:03.720 --> 00:33:06.279
lot of the interviews in the car there there there,
592
00:33:06.440 --> 00:33:10.039
I think everybody's everybody who's a parent has experienced kind
593
00:33:10.039 --> 00:33:14.039
of the how you can get your kids to say
594
00:33:14.079 --> 00:33:16.759
things in a car that you know, you can just
595
00:33:16.799 --> 00:33:18.799
you can have good conversation in a car. So there
596
00:33:19.119 --> 00:33:24.359
is something oddly uh comfortable about, you know, about just
597
00:33:24.440 --> 00:33:27.440
talking while you're driving. So if you look at the
598
00:33:28.119 --> 00:33:32.640
channel we've put together with this partnership, the Vintage Voices,
599
00:33:33.559 --> 00:33:38.279
it's called Vintage Voices one hundred, which you can see
600
00:33:38.440 --> 00:33:44.279
on on Instagram and YouTube all that stuff. But I
601
00:33:44.480 --> 00:33:46.440
but I you know, I guess just we can get
602
00:33:46.440 --> 00:33:47.759
to that more of that in the minute. But in
603
00:33:47.799 --> 00:33:51.400
terms of just your question. You know, I think it's
604
00:33:51.440 --> 00:33:55.480
it's just it's just interesting to me. You know, it's
605
00:33:55.480 --> 00:33:59.039
funny because people will say people will I just I
606
00:33:59.160 --> 00:34:03.000
laugh my rear sometimes because people will say that they
607
00:34:03.039 --> 00:34:06.240
really appreciate my work and they say it like how
608
00:34:06.279 --> 00:34:09.920
you would talk to somebody who who's digging wells in
609
00:34:10.599 --> 00:34:13.559
you know, in in the you know, in Africa, like
610
00:34:13.559 --> 00:34:16.679
like I mean, I it's just it's I've always been
611
00:34:16.840 --> 00:34:20.119
a history person. I've always very enjoyed history, and I'm
612
00:34:20.159 --> 00:34:24.760
fascinated to just see, you know, what happens from generation generation.
613
00:34:24.960 --> 00:34:30.000
So for me, it's just it's just curiosity to just
614
00:34:30.079 --> 00:34:33.920
try to put myself in that person's head of what
615
00:34:34.119 --> 00:34:37.519
their life was like. And then I think that people
616
00:34:39.159 --> 00:34:43.320
they have a good radar of authenticity and they see
617
00:34:43.360 --> 00:34:48.920
that I'm authentic, right and the fact that I'm a stranger,
618
00:34:49.000 --> 00:34:52.119
I think makes it a lot easier sometimes to open up.
619
00:34:52.880 --> 00:34:55.599
And so it's it's interesting, and you know this totally.
620
00:34:55.639 --> 00:35:00.000
I think this next comment fits with the whole premise
621
00:35:00.119 --> 00:35:03.679
of what you're doing. Ron is then I honestly, I
622
00:35:03.719 --> 00:35:06.599
never really felt to be to be brutally honest, I
623
00:35:06.639 --> 00:35:08.599
never felt like I was a very good CEO. At
624
00:35:08.599 --> 00:35:10.920
I twelve, I was a good sales guy, but I
625
00:35:10.920 --> 00:35:16.119
really wasn't very good CEO. But I really feel like
626
00:35:16.159 --> 00:35:20.320
I'm good at interviewing and and and and I think
627
00:35:20.320 --> 00:35:22.599
it's a to the point of your show. It's a
628
00:35:22.800 --> 00:35:26.880
skill set that I never would have ever thought that
629
00:35:26.960 --> 00:35:30.639
I had, that I don't even tap into till my
630
00:35:30.719 --> 00:35:33.960
early sixties. And and it's and it's turning out to
631
00:35:34.039 --> 00:35:37.440
be something I thoroughly enjoy, you know, I think that
632
00:35:37.559 --> 00:35:41.639
I'm good at and I've surrounded myself with phenomenal with
633
00:35:41.719 --> 00:35:45.079
the documentaries that we do, phenomenal team of editors and
634
00:35:45.480 --> 00:35:50.639
uh and videographers that really make the conversations that we
635
00:35:50.760 --> 00:35:54.519
have come to life. But it's really it, you know,
636
00:35:54.519 --> 00:35:57.119
I think that I think what anybody's good at doing
637
00:35:57.920 --> 00:36:00.960
doesn't seem that hard. Like for me, I really enjoy
638
00:36:01.639 --> 00:36:04.159
public speaking and getting in front of you know, get
639
00:36:04.159 --> 00:36:06.480
in front of groups of people and talk about these
640
00:36:06.559 --> 00:36:08.719
lessons I'm learning and this is that. And so like
641
00:36:08.760 --> 00:36:14.119
when you hear how the terror that public speaking strikes
642
00:36:14.159 --> 00:36:17.159
inside of people, I don't get it. But man, throw
643
00:36:17.280 --> 00:36:21.920
me a pipe wrench with a with a toilet overflowing
644
00:36:22.119 --> 00:36:24.519
and that's when I get terrified. I have no idea
645
00:36:24.559 --> 00:36:26.320
what dude, So I think, you know, we all kind
646
00:36:26.320 --> 00:36:29.840
of have our mojo of what we do. But to me,
647
00:36:30.000 --> 00:36:32.400
I think, again, just going back to your question, it's
648
00:36:32.559 --> 00:36:39.599
just being genuinely curious about a person's whatever the topic is,
649
00:36:39.719 --> 00:36:42.320
and then just shut up and let them, let them
650
00:36:42.400 --> 00:36:43.000
run with it.
651
00:36:43.239 --> 00:36:45.519
Yeah, I think you're right, Jack. I think I think
652
00:36:45.559 --> 00:36:50.000
people detect your curiosity. It's a genuine curiosity. You're just
653
00:36:50.039 --> 00:36:53.599
interested in their lives. You're listening to them, and you know,
654
00:36:53.920 --> 00:36:57.360
I think especially with older people, you know, they've lived
655
00:36:57.360 --> 00:36:59.920
a long time and they can pick up, you know, things,
656
00:37:00.679 --> 00:37:03.440
they can sense things, you know, because they've their brain
657
00:37:03.519 --> 00:37:05.920
is is you know, a similating a lot of experiences,
658
00:37:05.920 --> 00:37:09.199
and they can tell very quickly. This guy is for real,
659
00:37:09.519 --> 00:37:12.159
and he's generally interested, and he's not he's not threatening
660
00:37:12.199 --> 00:37:13.760
to me, he's not trying to do he's not trying
661
00:37:13.800 --> 00:37:16.559
to coerce me get something out of me. He's genuinely
662
00:37:16.599 --> 00:37:18.280
curious and he wants to know what was my name?
663
00:37:18.360 --> 00:37:20.320
Yeah, like this guy. There's a guy, a guy in
664
00:37:20.440 --> 00:37:26.000
Iowa that worked for forty five mill forty five years
665
00:37:26.079 --> 00:37:29.639
at General Mills and making cereal, and I just thought
666
00:37:29.679 --> 00:37:32.000
that was I thought that was fascinating. Like, you know,
667
00:37:32.239 --> 00:37:36.960
it's easy to stereotype, like, you know what a that's
668
00:37:37.000 --> 00:37:39.079
that's kind of must have been kind of a boring job,
669
00:37:39.599 --> 00:37:41.920
you know, you the guy starts talking about it, he
670
00:37:41.960 --> 00:37:44.440
was doing all kinds of stuff and that was that's
671
00:37:44.519 --> 00:37:48.599
his his identity is General Mills and the stuff that
672
00:37:48.679 --> 00:37:53.679
he was doing to improve cereal, and it, uh, you know,
673
00:37:54.039 --> 00:37:56.239
from the outside it could seem like a simple thing
674
00:37:56.280 --> 00:38:00.159
to him. That was his life for forty five years,
675
00:38:00.239 --> 00:38:02.320
and you want to you want to honor it and
676
00:38:02.400 --> 00:38:04.199
let him talk about it. And the guy hadn't talked
677
00:38:04.199 --> 00:38:07.559
about it for probably you know, you know, he was
678
00:38:07.599 --> 00:38:09.440
a hundred and one and there is a hundred one
679
00:38:09.480 --> 00:38:12.239
and the buddies that he worked with are all gone.
680
00:38:12.360 --> 00:38:15.719
So I mean there's a lot of yeah, a lot
681
00:38:15.719 --> 00:38:19.840
of psychological kind of dynamics to some of these conversations
682
00:38:19.880 --> 00:38:22.119
that I think. You don't you don't really think of
683
00:38:22.239 --> 00:38:24.880
you just have the conversation. But there's a The more
684
00:38:24.920 --> 00:38:26.719
I do it, the more I realize it really is
685
00:38:26.800 --> 00:38:29.960
tappened into something a lot deeper than I originally thought.
686
00:38:30.280 --> 00:38:32.880
Yeah, yeah, I think that we just don't think about
687
00:38:32.880 --> 00:38:35.199
the fact that, you know, there is loss in life.
688
00:38:35.360 --> 00:38:38.079
You know, you lose your family, your friends, they move away,
689
00:38:38.159 --> 00:38:41.719
they pass away, but but your need to connect is
690
00:38:41.760 --> 00:38:45.559
still there, you know, and and you know, so I
691
00:38:45.599 --> 00:38:49.119
think that as you pointed at earlier, COVID really pushed this,
692
00:38:49.320 --> 00:38:52.159
you know, triggered this realization like, oh wow, people are
693
00:38:52.199 --> 00:38:56.159
really lonely. They need to connect. But but this does
694
00:38:56.159 --> 00:38:59.400
it in the more, you know, I don't know. Yeah, well,
695
00:38:59.440 --> 00:39:01.400
I think it's nice that you you know, you have
696
00:39:01.760 --> 00:39:06.960
you tailgate for for Roman numeral for joy, which is
697
00:39:07.000 --> 00:39:10.440
the joy aspect of it, that this is joyful. I mean, yeah,
698
00:39:10.639 --> 00:39:15.239
there's a certain wistfulness about it, it's true. But the
699
00:39:15.280 --> 00:39:17.360
ability for people to do this I think is really
700
00:39:17.400 --> 00:39:20.639
important to them. Any any other you mentioned this guy
701
00:39:20.639 --> 00:39:24.239
from Gentlem Mills, any other stories that have surprised you
702
00:39:24.400 --> 00:39:26.880
or just sort of stuck with you that you know,
703
00:39:27.400 --> 00:39:28.840
you've done so many. I know it's hard.
704
00:39:28.920 --> 00:39:33.960
Yeah, you know, I think the you know, let me
705
00:39:34.000 --> 00:39:38.360
answer kind of both specifically and generically. Specifically, you know,
706
00:39:38.360 --> 00:39:40.480
I've talked to a handful of World War Two vets
707
00:39:40.800 --> 00:39:44.320
that and those stories are just fascinating, but just a
708
00:39:44.320 --> 00:39:48.119
couple of months ago. Like you, I'm talking about one
709
00:39:48.159 --> 00:39:50.599
hundred You like, the documentaries that we do are very
710
00:39:50.760 --> 00:39:53.440
planned and there's a real you know, there's a whole
711
00:39:53.559 --> 00:39:56.800
story that we're putting together and plotting, and that's a
712
00:39:56.880 --> 00:40:01.039
very structured process. The Vintage Voice one hundred year old visits,
713
00:40:01.119 --> 00:40:03.079
you just show up. You don't know what's going to happen.
714
00:40:03.360 --> 00:40:05.519
But anyway, So I've had a lot of these, a
715
00:40:05.519 --> 00:40:08.679
lot of the World War two vets, and all of
716
00:40:08.719 --> 00:40:10.920
a sudden, a couple of months ago, a guy gets
717
00:40:10.960 --> 00:40:16.119
in just a thick German accent, and he grew up
718
00:40:16.360 --> 00:40:19.559
he grew up in Germany as a kid, and he
719
00:40:19.639 --> 00:40:25.320
had to spend thirty minutes every morning singing praise songs
720
00:40:25.360 --> 00:40:30.400
to Hitler Wow. And then and that night he's running
721
00:40:30.480 --> 00:40:33.440
between his house and a bomb shelter, you know, right
722
00:40:33.519 --> 00:40:36.559
in the middle of everything. But you think about that stuff,
723
00:40:37.840 --> 00:40:40.679
you know, I think you you you think about that
724
00:40:40.760 --> 00:40:44.880
as being ancient history. And then you're just sitting, you know,
725
00:40:45.000 --> 00:40:49.239
in the car, right next to somebody. You know, you
726
00:40:49.239 --> 00:40:52.679
each got your cup of coffee, and it's a person
727
00:40:52.760 --> 00:40:57.440
that just lived it. So I think that there's you know,
728
00:40:57.480 --> 00:41:01.639
it's almost like, you know, it's I could spend you know,
729
00:41:01.760 --> 00:41:05.920
fourteen of your episodes talking about the individual stories there
730
00:41:06.079 --> 00:41:11.519
there there just is it's it's just fascinating to me,
731
00:41:13.400 --> 00:41:17.239
the resiliency that people had. Seventy five percent of the
732
00:41:17.239 --> 00:41:20.199
people that we talked to grew up with no power,
733
00:41:20.360 --> 00:41:24.480
with no election, you know, no electricity half the time,
734
00:41:24.559 --> 00:41:27.480
no running water, bathrooms outside of it's a rural area.
735
00:41:28.199 --> 00:41:30.400
And the one thing they all have in common is
736
00:41:30.519 --> 00:41:35.360
nobody complained that. There's not one iota of complaining about So.
737
00:41:35.440 --> 00:41:37.840
I mean, I my tolerance, I you know, this is
738
00:41:37.920 --> 00:41:41.880
like my tolerance level of young people complaining about stuff
739
00:41:42.000 --> 00:41:47.679
is extremely low. Gallow, Yeah, yeah, so it uh but
740
00:41:47.800 --> 00:41:50.400
I do I I you know, honestly, ron I I
741
00:41:50.920 --> 00:41:54.960
go to bed at night, I can't. I can't tell
742
00:41:55.000 --> 00:41:59.239
you how the spiritual impact these people have on me.
743
00:41:59.320 --> 00:42:03.760
And it just I try to really at the end
744
00:42:03.800 --> 00:42:08.800
of the day just spend some time with the lights
745
00:42:08.840 --> 00:42:13.960
out and nothing and just think about who that person
746
00:42:14.159 --> 00:42:17.199
was that I talked that day, and it is it
747
00:42:17.320 --> 00:42:19.280
is you know, it sounds hokey to say it, but
748
00:42:19.320 --> 00:42:22.719
it is such an honor to capture this you know,
749
00:42:22.719 --> 00:42:26.119
we just you have somebody's life on an SD card, right,
750
00:42:26.159 --> 00:42:28.360
and you know, we do all the social media stuff
751
00:42:28.400 --> 00:42:32.679
and it's getting you know, it's getting tens of thousands
752
00:42:32.679 --> 00:42:35.400
of followers and it's got millions of views. And you know,
753
00:42:35.920 --> 00:42:38.679
I don't mean to sound flippant, but that is so
754
00:42:38.719 --> 00:42:41.239
irrelevant to me. The relevant to me, the relevance to
755
00:42:41.239 --> 00:42:44.800
me what we're doing is that you you give that family.
756
00:42:45.880 --> 00:42:48.519
Here's the story, you know, here's this. You know, we'll
757
00:42:48.639 --> 00:42:52.880
edit the SD card, here's the story of your dad's life,
758
00:42:52.920 --> 00:42:56.800
your grandpa's life. And my kids, you know, my kids
759
00:42:56.920 --> 00:43:01.320
never met my dad, and and you know, you can
760
00:43:01.400 --> 00:43:06.119
show a picture and it's great, but to listen, you know,
761
00:43:06.239 --> 00:43:09.239
it's it's just the honor of doing this, the capturing.
762
00:43:09.880 --> 00:43:15.239
And it's happened several several times where the person's died
763
00:43:15.400 --> 00:43:18.840
and then we can we can get for the family,
764
00:43:18.960 --> 00:43:22.480
here's the stuff you inevitably didn't know about your mom
765
00:43:22.559 --> 00:43:24.800
or dad. So there is a I think I used
766
00:43:24.800 --> 00:43:27.000
this for before. There's a sanctity to all of this,
767
00:43:27.719 --> 00:43:31.440
and it's spirituality at all this that is just is
768
00:43:31.559 --> 00:43:34.079
just it's it's hard to it's hard to.
769
00:43:34.039 --> 00:43:39.960
Convey Yeah, yeah, you know, you you you missed those opportunities.
770
00:43:40.000 --> 00:43:42.320
You know, I think for a lot of us, you know,
771
00:43:42.800 --> 00:43:45.920
after after college, you know, I came back and I
772
00:43:45.960 --> 00:43:48.360
spent some time well after bad to school. It was
773
00:43:48.360 --> 00:43:52.360
a little bit after but with my folks, when I
774
00:43:52.440 --> 00:43:55.000
was working on an entrepreneurial project with one of my brothers.
775
00:43:55.679 --> 00:43:59.480
And you know, at first, you know, you're like, here,
776
00:43:59.519 --> 00:44:02.920
I am back home, you know, my parents. But now
777
00:44:02.960 --> 00:44:07.480
you're both adults, and you know, interestingly, in some ways
778
00:44:07.519 --> 00:44:11.239
the time was too short because I realized, well, now
779
00:44:11.280 --> 00:44:13.320
I can really talk to my dad, you know. And
780
00:44:13.360 --> 00:44:17.280
I remember, you know, you know, inviting him to lunch
781
00:44:17.440 --> 00:44:21.400
one day and saying, you know, why why did you
782
00:44:21.440 --> 00:44:23.920
make that decision? You know, why did you decide to
783
00:44:24.000 --> 00:44:26.119
drop out of law school? And who was at Harvard
784
00:44:26.199 --> 00:44:28.320
Law School? Why did you? You know, so things that
785
00:44:28.880 --> 00:44:31.880
you know that that we miss because you know, we're
786
00:44:31.960 --> 00:44:36.559
such a you know what mobile society. You know, we're
787
00:44:36.639 --> 00:44:39.559
a society of movers, and we just keep moving and moving.
788
00:44:39.639 --> 00:44:42.840
We don't get that time to connect. And so this
789
00:44:42.920 --> 00:44:46.239
is an interesting you know, you know, dventure viewers. I
790
00:44:46.280 --> 00:44:47.760
really appreciate the fact.
791
00:44:47.519 --> 00:44:50.239
That what's something you found out about your dad that
792
00:44:50.320 --> 00:44:52.119
you that you had no idea.
793
00:44:53.599 --> 00:44:56.840
Well, I had no idea his his father was a lawyer,
794
00:44:57.360 --> 00:45:00.639
very you know, successful lawyer, and and he could have
795
00:45:00.639 --> 00:45:03.360
been a lawyer. So what I found out, I said,
796
00:45:03.440 --> 00:45:05.440
why why didn't you want to go to law school?
797
00:45:05.880 --> 00:45:08.880
What bothered you about the law? Because he's like your dad,
798
00:45:08.960 --> 00:45:12.599
he turned out to be an engineer. And so he said, well,
799
00:45:13.000 --> 00:45:16.000
I didn't like the fact that as a lawyer you
800
00:45:16.039 --> 00:45:19.480
could argue two sides of the issue, one side and
801
00:45:19.559 --> 00:45:21.599
the next. He said, like, either either one side is
802
00:45:21.679 --> 00:45:24.360
right or not. You know, that's his engineering mind. So
803
00:45:24.400 --> 00:45:26.800
he didn't you know, he didn't like that kind of
804
00:45:27.679 --> 00:45:31.639
what to him was the sense of hypocrisy, you know,
805
00:45:32.159 --> 00:45:35.119
in the profession. So but that he had never really
806
00:45:35.199 --> 00:45:37.599
I had never really asked him about that, like why
807
00:45:38.039 --> 00:45:40.599
you know and that, and I it made a lot
808
00:45:40.599 --> 00:45:43.960
of sense knowing my dad's had a real sense of
809
00:45:44.000 --> 00:45:47.760
deep ethical sense of fairness in life, you know. So
810
00:45:47.960 --> 00:45:49.639
if it weren't for that lunch, though, I don't think
811
00:45:49.679 --> 00:45:51.039
I really would have been able.
812
00:45:50.840 --> 00:45:53.239
To Yeah, yeah, after that. Well the other thing too,
813
00:45:53.360 --> 00:45:56.559
is like you're in your not that it's this is
814
00:45:56.599 --> 00:45:58.760
a bad thing. It's it's just reality. I think you
815
00:45:58.800 --> 00:46:00.920
in your teens and twenties, you're kind of in your
816
00:46:00.920 --> 00:46:03.039
own head. You know, you're just you're trying to figure
817
00:46:03.039 --> 00:46:05.360
out your own stuff, so you don't you don't think
818
00:46:05.400 --> 00:46:07.960
about the reflectiveness that you think about when you you know,
819
00:46:08.039 --> 00:46:10.400
for me in kind of mid sixties, I do it.
820
00:46:10.400 --> 00:46:12.480
It's kind of an eye This is was not planned
821
00:46:12.519 --> 00:46:14.920
at all, but it's it's it's so relevant. Is that
822
00:46:15.480 --> 00:46:17.719
we have the van. I drive around in this whole
823
00:46:17.760 --> 00:46:20.199
vintage voice, hundred year old van. I drive around. It's
824
00:46:20.239 --> 00:46:23.760
all wrapped and there's a great picture of my there's
825
00:46:23.960 --> 00:46:26.159
of my dad in World War Two, and it's like
826
00:46:26.360 --> 00:46:29.639
right where the gas cap is. It's like every time
827
00:46:29.679 --> 00:46:32.480
I get gas, I'm like having a little silent Hey,
828
00:46:32.760 --> 00:46:36.239
what's going on Dad. It's like whole little connection that
829
00:46:36.280 --> 00:46:39.719
we have. But that, yeah, it's I mean, it is.
830
00:46:39.760 --> 00:46:43.079
I think you know, a takeaway from this for people
831
00:46:43.199 --> 00:46:46.440
is that you know it's a cliche, but just you know,
832
00:46:46.760 --> 00:46:49.199
go it's so easy with goport. There's so many ways
833
00:46:49.239 --> 00:46:52.320
to film things that there's just no excuse not to
834
00:46:52.400 --> 00:46:54.679
do it. And you just you know, while your parents
835
00:46:54.679 --> 00:46:58.039
are or even your kids, you know, you know, just
836
00:46:58.039 --> 00:47:01.559
just take time to slow down and capture stuff and
837
00:47:02.280 --> 00:47:03.239
you never regret it.
838
00:47:03.440 --> 00:47:07.639
Yeah, so we're just take one more quick break. I
839
00:47:07.679 --> 00:47:09.280
still want to get into quite a bit of that
840
00:47:09.360 --> 00:47:11.000
stuff with you, but we'll get in as much as
841
00:47:11.000 --> 00:47:13.880
we can. So, folks, we're going to take one more
842
00:47:13.960 --> 00:47:18.039
quick break. But don't go away because we have a
843
00:47:18.039 --> 00:47:20.840
lot more to talk about in our last segment with
844
00:47:21.159 --> 00:47:24.400
jack Yorke, the founder of Tailgate. So don't go anywhere.
845
00:47:25.840 --> 00:47:30.119
Caring for a loved one can feel overwhelming. That's why
846
00:47:30.159 --> 00:47:34.400
we created caregiving nav dot com, your personal guide through
847
00:47:34.440 --> 00:47:39.199
the complex world of caregiving. It's a free, interactive website
848
00:47:39.239 --> 00:47:43.559
built around the Caregiving Navigator Book with tools designed to
849
00:47:43.639 --> 00:47:47.840
make your journey easier. Whether you're planning a head, managing
850
00:47:47.920 --> 00:47:52.400
care right now, or navigating a crisis, you'll find step
851
00:47:52.440 --> 00:47:58.320
by step advice, trusted resources, and over a dozen downloadable checklists.
852
00:47:59.039 --> 00:48:04.119
From legal plan to home safety, from medical decisions to
853
00:48:04.239 --> 00:48:09.480
emotional support, it's all here, all in one place. Just
854
00:48:09.639 --> 00:48:14.039
visit caregiving nav dot com.
855
00:48:13.000 --> 00:48:16.599
Because you're not alone on this path, and the help
856
00:48:16.639 --> 00:48:25.039
you need is just a click away.
857
00:48:25.639 --> 00:48:28.119
And welcome back, folks to forty five forward when we're
858
00:48:28.159 --> 00:48:31.199
talking today with jack Yorke, we've been covering a lot
859
00:48:31.280 --> 00:48:35.960
of territory about how he is gathered and disseminated the
860
00:48:36.000 --> 00:48:40.840
stories of America's seniors, terrific stories. A very interesting and
861
00:48:40.920 --> 00:48:44.119
we're going to now just talk about you know, his
862
00:48:44.199 --> 00:48:49.599
Vinca's Voices project talks about the lives of centenarians one
863
00:48:49.679 --> 00:48:54.239
hundred year olds, and he had some interesting observations about
864
00:48:54.320 --> 00:48:56.920
you know, because everyone says like, oh, well, what are
865
00:48:56.920 --> 00:49:01.239
the secrets to living so long? And interesting observations that
866
00:49:01.320 --> 00:49:03.079
have nothing to do with food and diet.
867
00:49:03.400 --> 00:49:07.559
Yeah, yeah, yeah, well the uh, you know one thing too,
868
00:49:07.599 --> 00:49:09.639
I think this is this is like a good for
869
00:49:09.760 --> 00:49:15.039
your listeners, a a good trivia bar statistic is that
870
00:49:15.079 --> 00:49:20.760
there there's more people, you know, more centenarians, more people
871
00:49:20.960 --> 00:49:23.880
over one hundred now than in the history of the
872
00:49:23.920 --> 00:49:27.719
world combined. So that, I mean, that is that isn't crazy.
873
00:49:27.880 --> 00:49:30.719
So it's definitely you know, and it's just with all
874
00:49:30.760 --> 00:49:33.320
the medical advances obviously, it's it's not as much of
875
00:49:33.360 --> 00:49:36.159
a novel it as before it you know, we talked
876
00:49:36.199 --> 00:49:39.719
a little bit about this before that it's and there's
877
00:49:39.760 --> 00:49:41.840
you know, there's really, you know, you look at something,
878
00:49:42.000 --> 00:49:43.679
you know, like the blue zone, there's all that. You know.
879
00:49:44.000 --> 00:49:45.800
I don't want to pretend to be a researcher. All
880
00:49:45.840 --> 00:49:48.239
I'm talking about is just the anecdotal stuff I've seen.
881
00:49:48.960 --> 00:49:54.400
But there has been no consistency at all when it
882
00:49:54.559 --> 00:49:59.719
comes to diet, when it comes to you know, do
883
00:49:59.760 --> 00:50:02.760
you ankoring? And there's there's people that have not had
884
00:50:02.800 --> 00:50:05.119
a drink ever. There's somebody else that, you know, at
885
00:50:05.280 --> 00:50:08.880
nine in the morning has a glass of bourbon every day.
886
00:50:08.960 --> 00:50:12.079
Like there's no consisten is that? But the things that
887
00:50:12.119 --> 00:50:17.679
have been consistent are I mean, faith has been like
888
00:50:17.840 --> 00:50:21.559
ninety five percent consistent, that people having a very strong
889
00:50:21.599 --> 00:50:26.000
connection with God, with you know, whatever their God is.
890
00:50:26.440 --> 00:50:28.400
A few people have been you know, just kind of
891
00:50:28.480 --> 00:50:31.800
vehemently not but that's still about ninety five percent. What's
892
00:50:31.800 --> 00:50:34.400
been one hundred percent consistent, and it was It's interesting.
893
00:50:35.159 --> 00:50:37.599
It's almost a couple of things. One of is it's
894
00:50:37.719 --> 00:50:44.639
almost a feistiness of people. You know, obviously, anybody over
895
00:50:44.639 --> 00:50:46.559
one hundred, most of them are gonna have some kind
896
00:50:46.559 --> 00:50:49.280
of physical issues and so there are some things they
897
00:50:49.280 --> 00:50:53.599
need help with, but they they begrudgingly take that help
898
00:50:53.679 --> 00:50:57.000
they do. And it's interesting because I think a lot
899
00:50:57.000 --> 00:51:00.719
of mindset, you know, for good reason, and whether it's
900
00:51:01.000 --> 00:51:03.519
is an individual or a living community, is you try
901
00:51:03.599 --> 00:51:06.800
to take every you try to do everything for people.
902
00:51:06.920 --> 00:51:09.679
And I think that I walk away from this thinking
903
00:51:10.480 --> 00:51:13.280
that's probably not the right answer, because people still, you know,
904
00:51:13.360 --> 00:51:16.039
they they still want to try to use you know,
905
00:51:16.159 --> 00:51:18.239
use their utensils. They still want to try to walk
906
00:51:18.280 --> 00:51:20.599
as much as they can. So that was one thing.
907
00:51:20.679 --> 00:51:24.159
Another thing is just a you know, very few people
908
00:51:24.199 --> 00:51:27.280
that I've interviewed over one hundred are sitting around watching television.
909
00:51:27.320 --> 00:51:31.599
There there is a a thirst of there's a curiosity
910
00:51:31.679 --> 00:51:35.280
that stays there. People asking me about the cameras and
911
00:51:35.360 --> 00:51:36.840
you know, what are we doing with all this stuff?
912
00:51:36.880 --> 00:51:40.559
And it really is you know, that has been very interesting.
913
00:51:40.559 --> 00:51:42.880
And the last thing, and this has been a great
914
00:51:42.920 --> 00:51:45.639
thing for me to to look at in my in
915
00:51:45.679 --> 00:51:51.239
my mid sixties, is just movement. Just very intentional people
916
00:51:51.400 --> 00:51:55.159
trying to move realize, you know, not heavy exercise, not
917
00:51:55.320 --> 00:51:57.320
some people do heavy exercise, but a lot of but
918
00:51:57.360 --> 00:51:59.960
people just intentionally trying to walk as much as they
919
00:52:00.159 --> 00:52:04.480
can and uh and and have consistent movement. But those
920
00:52:04.559 --> 00:52:07.679
those three things have been pretty consistent, but it it
921
00:52:08.079 --> 00:52:12.000
you know, the personalities, the we you know have Oh,
922
00:52:12.199 --> 00:52:13.800
I'll just say a couple of things like you you
923
00:52:13.920 --> 00:52:17.800
kind of you kind of have this this this sense
924
00:52:17.880 --> 00:52:21.800
of puritanism that you know is not really relevant. But
925
00:52:21.840 --> 00:52:24.599
there was one guy that was ninety it was one
926
00:52:24.679 --> 00:52:26.719
hundred and two and he was talking about his wife
927
00:52:27.360 --> 00:52:31.519
died when he was seventy five and uh and so
928
00:52:31.559 --> 00:52:33.119
it was like, that must have been hard. How did
929
00:52:33.159 --> 00:52:35.840
you excuse me eighty five? He wiped time he was
930
00:52:35.840 --> 00:52:36.880
eighty five. I was like, well, how did you it
931
00:52:36.920 --> 00:52:38.480
must have been you know, how did you deal with that?
932
00:52:38.559 --> 00:52:40.840
What was your you know, what what was it like?
933
00:52:40.880 --> 00:52:44.239
And he was like, well, luckily, six months later I
934
00:52:44.280 --> 00:52:47.280
met a short redhead and she was a sexual dynamo.
935
00:52:47.760 --> 00:52:50.239
And so this is like a guy in eighty five.
936
00:52:50.320 --> 00:52:54.159
So I think that the I think the reason the
937
00:52:54.320 --> 00:52:57.519
channel is popular this is this. I have no research
938
00:52:57.559 --> 00:53:00.639
on this. It's just kind of intuitive that Dad Media
939
00:53:00.679 --> 00:53:03.440
and our friend Nathan Jones, who does all the analytics,
940
00:53:04.519 --> 00:53:06.639
most of the people that watch it, and it's been
941
00:53:06.719 --> 00:53:09.880
millions and millions of views this stuff has had are
942
00:53:10.039 --> 00:53:12.800
people like between forty five and sixty five, and I
943
00:53:12.840 --> 00:53:17.119
think it's I think it's showing their eighty year old
944
00:53:17.239 --> 00:53:21.119
parents that are feeling like they should check out that.
945
00:53:21.280 --> 00:53:24.159
You know, Mom, look at this lady that's twenty years
946
00:53:24.239 --> 00:53:26.400
old older than you are, and it's just kicking butt.
947
00:53:26.480 --> 00:53:29.639
And I think, you know, for your audience, run that
948
00:53:29.800 --> 00:53:34.239
is so relevant. I think that how how it's it's relevant,
949
00:53:34.480 --> 00:53:38.079
how irrelevant the number of an age is because you'll
950
00:53:38.119 --> 00:53:42.920
just see people that are super frail at sixty something
951
00:53:42.960 --> 00:53:46.639
and somebody just going crazy at a at one hundred
952
00:53:46.639 --> 00:53:50.840
and five, and so it really it's just it's it's
953
00:53:50.880 --> 00:53:54.360
a joy to keep, you know, keep finding these people
954
00:53:54.519 --> 00:53:57.400
and to and to just see you know, what they're
955
00:53:57.440 --> 00:53:59.639
going to say. And like I said before, it's not
956
00:54:00.920 --> 00:54:04.559
the stories don't have to be about dramatic things they've done.
957
00:54:04.639 --> 00:54:10.079
There's there's there's a there's a beauty to the the
958
00:54:10.119 --> 00:54:14.039
more simplistic people that have just lived good lives and
959
00:54:14.079 --> 00:54:15.440
are proud of those good lives.
960
00:54:16.800 --> 00:54:18.639
Yeah, you've talked to me about you know, there's just
961
00:54:18.679 --> 00:54:20.880
a quiet dignity about a lot of these people that
962
00:54:21.000 --> 00:54:23.480
you and a lot of them. But as you mentioned,
963
00:54:23.559 --> 00:54:25.800
you know, going back to World War two, especially these
964
00:54:25.880 --> 00:54:28.840
veterans that you can sense that in them, but in general,
965
00:54:28.880 --> 00:54:31.519
I think a lot of people there is that. You know,
966
00:54:32.000 --> 00:54:35.119
you you get more comfortable with yourself as you get older.
967
00:54:35.519 --> 00:54:36.480
Yeah you are.
968
00:54:37.480 --> 00:54:39.480
Yeah. And I and I just again a little lot
969
00:54:39.480 --> 00:54:41.159
of talk, but I just I want to not regret
970
00:54:41.199 --> 00:54:45.039
that and bring this up. There really is an intense,
971
00:54:45.719 --> 00:54:50.480
an intensity of loneliness throughout the communities, and I really
972
00:54:50.559 --> 00:54:54.519
do the one thing I'm really really trying to preach
973
00:54:55.400 --> 00:54:57.159
as I speak and as I talk to a lot
974
00:54:57.159 --> 00:55:00.280
of people that run livy communities is to tie in
975
00:55:00.320 --> 00:55:03.079
with local high schools. Because like the one quick story
976
00:55:03.119 --> 00:55:05.760
that speaks to that is a gentleman, a gentleman that
977
00:55:05.880 --> 00:55:08.199
was you know, he's one hundred and one. It's kind
978
00:55:08.199 --> 00:55:11.000
of frail in his walker going up to the van.
979
00:55:11.639 --> 00:55:14.920
He gets into the van, we started talking. The guy
980
00:55:14.960 --> 00:55:20.039
had a silver Star from World War Two for jumping
981
00:55:20.159 --> 00:55:23.159
out of a plane that was flying about one hundred
982
00:55:23.159 --> 00:55:28.000
feet over the water to rescue two British pilots that
983
00:55:28.039 --> 00:55:33.079
had crashed. And like you hear that story and the
984
00:55:33.119 --> 00:55:35.960
guy instantly is not this frail guy in a walker.
985
00:55:36.440 --> 00:55:39.360
He's the guy that jumped out of a freaking plane
986
00:55:39.360 --> 00:55:41.679
to do that. And so I went to his house
987
00:55:41.800 --> 00:55:45.119
later that day. He had all of the stuff there
988
00:55:45.159 --> 00:55:48.519
to show me. He was so thirsty to tell it
989
00:55:48.639 --> 00:55:52.000
and show it. He'd lived at the community for ten years.
990
00:55:52.639 --> 00:55:54.880
I drive out of the parking lot at the end
991
00:55:54.920 --> 00:55:58.320
of the afternoon. It's right across the street from a
992
00:55:58.400 --> 00:56:03.960
high school. How any classes have graduated talking about World
993
00:56:04.039 --> 00:56:06.360
War two, talking about the creat war, created war, talking
994
00:56:06.360 --> 00:56:09.519
about Vietnam and right across the street are these people
995
00:56:09.519 --> 00:56:13.840
that are so thirsty to tell their experiences? And so
996
00:56:13.920 --> 00:56:17.119
I just think that I think it's easy to get
997
00:56:17.159 --> 00:56:20.599
caught up in the enormity of big picture issues. It's
998
00:56:20.639 --> 00:56:24.599
not difficult to forge a partnership between a senior living
999
00:56:24.599 --> 00:56:27.800
community in a high school to just have their history
1000
00:56:27.800 --> 00:56:31.519
classes start integrating residents, to tell that that's things that
1001
00:56:31.559 --> 00:56:32.480
people can just do.
1002
00:56:32.599 --> 00:56:36.360
Yeah, And I think that's you know, there's much more engagement,
1003
00:56:36.480 --> 00:56:40.239
much more sense of meaning. Yeah, nothing wrong with going
1004
00:56:40.320 --> 00:56:44.199
to having you know, elementary or kids go and visit
1005
00:56:44.239 --> 00:56:47.440
a senior community or senior center and share, you know,
1006
00:56:47.480 --> 00:56:50.840
with the seniors. But the sharing of those experiences, I
1007
00:56:50.880 --> 00:56:53.320
think that's what's It's not just you know, being there
1008
00:56:53.360 --> 00:56:54.719
and leaving them.
1009
00:56:54.800 --> 00:56:58.639
Yeah. Yeah, and it's a whole other topic. But I
1010
00:56:58.679 --> 00:57:02.519
think that the the importance of a relationship rather than
1011
00:57:02.599 --> 00:57:04.880
kind of a one and done experience.
1012
00:57:06.239 --> 00:57:08.440
So before we go, I want to make sure that
1013
00:57:08.480 --> 00:57:10.599
we tell people how to get in touch with you
1014
00:57:10.639 --> 00:57:13.679
into you know, how how to watch the videos and
1015
00:57:13.800 --> 00:57:17.280
all the contact information. But before that, I just want
1016
00:57:17.320 --> 00:57:18.400
to know what's next for you.
1017
00:57:18.440 --> 00:57:18.559
Now.
1018
00:57:18.639 --> 00:57:22.000
You you so you mentioned that you're you're going around
1019
00:57:21.960 --> 00:57:23.960
and you're you're still doing your lecturing, you want to
1020
00:57:23.960 --> 00:57:24.960
do other things.
1021
00:57:25.719 --> 00:57:29.039
Yeah, well we're gonna I mean, it really is. I
1022
00:57:29.079 --> 00:57:32.360
mean my life is insane schedule wise. So we're going
1023
00:57:32.440 --> 00:57:36.199
to wrap up the Vintage Voices tour at the end
1024
00:57:36.239 --> 00:57:38.559
of the year, and then next year I'm really going
1025
00:57:38.639 --> 00:57:41.039
to be focused. So we're going to still be showing
1026
00:57:41.079 --> 00:57:43.079
some of the content, but next year I'm really going
1027
00:57:43.119 --> 00:57:46.360
to be focusing on doing the these kind of deeper
1028
00:57:46.440 --> 00:57:50.280
dive documentaries that are all about aging, and they're all
1029
00:57:50.400 --> 00:57:53.119
you know, I'm not trying to make political states. It's
1030
00:57:53.159 --> 00:57:56.679
all about elevating agent. It's all about stories of people
1031
00:57:56.719 --> 00:57:59.199
that either live in senior living, people that work in
1032
00:57:59.239 --> 00:58:03.440
senior living, but really elevating all these stories that need
1033
00:58:03.519 --> 00:58:07.559
to be told in a really professional, well done way,
1034
00:58:07.599 --> 00:58:10.639
and we've done dozens of them so far. You can
1035
00:58:10.719 --> 00:58:14.840
see them at our our website as www dot Tailgate
1036
00:58:15.119 --> 00:58:18.559
for Joy dot com, t A L E g A
1037
00:58:18.800 --> 00:58:22.159
T E for Joy dot Com. And then I really
1038
00:58:22.360 --> 00:58:28.280
enjoy speaking, you know, all over the country to you know,
1039
00:58:28.320 --> 00:58:30.920
a lot of what I'm speaking is to senior living organizations,
1040
00:58:30.920 --> 00:58:33.199
but I'm trying to kind of branch out of that.
1041
00:58:33.599 --> 00:58:36.159
I'll still keep doing that, but I really want to
1042
00:58:36.239 --> 00:58:39.360
kind of get out to the the community at large
1043
00:58:39.559 --> 00:58:43.400
about these lessons I've learned, and you know, in my
1044
00:58:43.519 --> 00:58:47.239
own you know, however, I can do it myself, and
1045
00:58:47.320 --> 00:58:50.840
through the work we've done just really just kind of
1046
00:58:50.880 --> 00:58:54.320
help change the stigma of aging and for both for
1047
00:58:54.440 --> 00:58:58.840
the older adults themselves, but also for the people that
1048
00:58:59.079 --> 00:59:03.440
have all these fears and stereotypes and all this stuff
1049
00:59:03.440 --> 00:59:07.679
that I don't think has changed through Anti Aging Week
1050
00:59:07.840 --> 00:59:10.079
or all these things that are well intentioned. I think
1051
00:59:10.119 --> 00:59:13.960
it's you know, you watch the story of somebody that's
1052
00:59:14.000 --> 00:59:17.719
really made an impact, and it makes you not so
1053
00:59:17.960 --> 00:59:20.280
fearful I think of growing old, and I think the
1054
00:59:20.320 --> 00:59:23.960
work you're doing Ron speaks exactly to that as well.
1055
00:59:25.639 --> 00:59:28.280
So Jack, and people want to get in touch with you,
1056
00:59:28.280 --> 00:59:29.320
can I give me your email?
1057
00:59:29.599 --> 00:59:32.880
Oh yeah, email you know, you know, we love to
1058
00:59:32.880 --> 00:59:36.480
be getting folks following the Vintage Voices too, or that's
1059
00:59:36.519 --> 00:59:43.039
just Vintage Voices one hundred on Instagram or YouTube or Facebook,
1060
00:59:43.079 --> 00:59:47.800
TikTok whatever, and then yeah, email me and I you know,
1061
00:59:47.840 --> 00:59:51.639
if you've got I'm I'm working my way throughout the
1062
00:59:51.679 --> 00:59:57.360
whole from kind of the Carolinas up through the Northeast,
1063
00:59:57.599 --> 01:00:01.239
through the Upper Midwest and up in California. If somebody
1064
01:00:01.400 --> 01:00:03.679
that hears this has a great hundred year old I
1065
01:00:03.679 --> 01:00:05.559
can't guarantee it, but reach out to me. And if
1066
01:00:05.559 --> 01:00:08.280
there's a way to swing my van around and grab
1067
01:00:08.320 --> 01:00:10.039
the story, I'll do it.
1068
01:00:10.199 --> 01:00:13.320
Mm hmm okay. And you know you're on LinkedIn and
1069
01:00:13.360 --> 01:00:16.599
Facebook and people you've got lots of interesting posts there
1070
01:00:17.440 --> 01:00:20.599
and then they can watch your reels, which I've done,
1071
01:00:20.800 --> 01:00:22.480
you know, So that's a great way to get a
1072
01:00:22.519 --> 01:00:24.920
taste for all of the stuff you've done. So I
1073
01:00:25.000 --> 01:00:27.679
encourage people to go on that because they are joyful.
1074
01:00:28.239 --> 01:00:32.000
You do come away with a sense of gratitude and joy.
1075
01:00:32.239 --> 01:00:35.880
So so Thanks very much, Jack, it was a great
1076
01:00:36.480 --> 01:00:40.280
hour to talk with you. I really appreciate the terrific conversation,
1077
01:00:41.039 --> 01:00:48.440
provoking thoughts to myself about my aging and my overall mantra,
1078
01:00:48.480 --> 01:00:51.800
which is to help people age successfully whatever that means,
1079
01:00:51.920 --> 01:00:55.760
but basically to do it with a not ignoring the
1080
01:00:55.840 --> 01:01:00.480
challenges we have, but also appreciating the lifelong growth, you know,
1081
01:01:00.679 --> 01:01:01.400
the life loop.
1082
01:01:01.639 --> 01:01:05.480
So yeah, that's right, all right, thanks Royan. Great work
1083
01:01:05.519 --> 01:01:07.159
you're doing as well, and it's I'm honored to be
1084
01:01:07.440 --> 01:01:08.159
to be on your show.
1085
01:01:08.280 --> 01:01:08.719
All right.
1086
01:01:08.760 --> 01:01:10.760
So, folks, if you have questions for me, you want
1087
01:01:10.800 --> 01:01:12.880
to get in touch with me, I'm Rondot Rowell at
1088
01:01:12.920 --> 01:01:17.559
gmail dot com. Send me your comments for questions. Uh So,
1089
01:01:17.880 --> 01:01:21.920
until our next episode, keep moving forward forty five forward