Empowering Seniors: A Conversation with Steve Gurney on Positive Aging and Innovative Solutions for Senior Living

About Steve Gurney
Steve Gurney founded Retirement Living SourceBook in 1990. Drawing from the experience of observing his family caring for Steve’s aging grandfather, he created a comprehensive publication to help others in the same situation. 

Over the next few years Steve expanded the publication to three regional editions, DC metro, State of Maryland, and the Philadelphia region. 

Steve has worked closely with nearly every regional and national organization on aging to help maximize their exposure and helping find solutions to their challenges.

In 1998, Mr. Gurney sold his company to The Washington Post where he served as General Manager of Sourcebook and the Senior Living Solutions Division. 

In 2019, Mr. Gurney acquired the resource back, and has re-branded as Positive Aging Community adding a new design and content, distribution partners, podcasts, and a robust schedule of live and interactive discussions with thought-leaders on a wide variety of topics.

In addition, Mr. Gurney founded ProAging Network meetings and leads the DC Senior Resource Group important resources for senior-serving professionals.

Mr. Gurney serves or has served on the board of directors for the Grass Roots Organization for the Well-Being of Seniors (GROWS), Alzheimer’s Association, Interages, Business and Aging Task Force, Virginia Intergenerational Task Force, and the Beacon Institute. 

Steve has served on countless committees and provided guidance to help organizations and businesses better serve the senior population.  

Mr. Gurney has received awards and recognition from the Seabury Resources for Aging, Maryland Assisted Living Association, the Senior Marketing Institute and other notable organizations. 

Steve is a regular speaker at local, regional and national events and has been featured in regional and national publications, electronic and broadcast media.

Steve Gurney received a Bachelors Degree in Business Administration from Old Dominion University and a Masters Degree from the Erickson School of Aging Studies at University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC).

Mr. Gurney served as an adjunct professor at Erickson School of Aging Studies at University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC), instructing in the undergraduate and graduate programs.

Steve is a competitive endurance athlete and certified level 2 Adaptive Snowboard Instructor with the American Association of Snowboard Instructors (AASI), a certified level 2 Stand Up Paddleboard Instructor with the American Canoe Association (ACA).  

In the winter he instructs with Blue Ridge Adaptive Snow Sports at Liberty Mountain Resort, and for over eight years he led operations and a team of instructors at Surf Reston Stand Up Paddleboarding, which he turned over to Reston Association.

Contact Steve Gurney at 703-966-6182 or steve@proaging.com

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Transcript

0:44

Hello everyone and thank you for being with us today. Our guest is Steve Gurney. He is the founder of the Positive Aging Sourcebook. He founded this publication over 33 years ago and after COVID he created the Positive Aging Community. Steve, thank you for being with us today. Thanks, I'm delighted to chat with you about any topic under the sun when it comes to aging-related topics. Well, great. I was checking out your website and it's very extensive, full of information. I also looked at your source book and I see that it's an amazing guide for people who are choosing to live in a senior living community or people who want to age in place. I just read the article on solo aging, which I have never heard it referred to as. solo aging so you know that was refreshing you learn something new every day but steep the topic of solo aging, I will tell you, that is one of the most popular discussion topics that we have in our community. There are so many people out there that are sort of faced with either planning or navigating the waters of sort of these age-related services and decisions all on their own. Yeah, I can vouch for that. Being an occupational therapist, I, of course, by the time that I came into contact with my patients, they had already either suffered some kind of accident or were living in a senior living community, sometimes by their own choice, sometimes not. And so... You just listen to all different types of stories. But before we get into that, I wanted you to tell us a little bit about your career and how you started the Positive Aging Sourcebook and then the community. Absolutely. So back about 33 years ago, I was in college, my grandfather needed a nursing home. I saw what my family had to go through to make that difficult decision. And it struck me as odd that there was not a resource guide out there that could help explain the different options and spell out all the different choices that we had. And when I graduated from college, I I figured, hey, let me try to put something like this together. I didn't really think that I was starting a business. I just wanted something on my resume. And, um, much to my surprise, people loved it and, uh, I'm still publishing it. 33 years later, uh, along the way, I ended up selling the business to the Washington post and, um, and ran it under their ownership for over 20 years. And then about four years ago. I had an opportunity to buy it back and now I'm running it on my own again. And one of the things about, you know, my organization is it has radically changed since the pandemic. In that, one of the things that I did a lot of was convening meetings of senior living professionals, professionals from a wide variety of disciplines who are helping families and older adults. And... When the pandemic hit, all these professionals started calling me saying, what are we going to do without your meetings? How are we going to, you know, function if we can't meet face to face anymore? And I started experimenting with different ways for us, the professional community to meet online. And an interesting thing sort of occurred is that I would do these discussions. And a lot of these professionals started inviting their, their clients to come to these meetings. And so now. Fast forward 350 plus of these discussions and three years later, we convene discussions on a wide variety of topics every week. And about half of our audience is older adults and family members. And the other half are the providers. And putting all these people in the same room, although it's virtual, and enabling them to have a conversation with an individual or an expert a real life story on a specific topic has been an amazing transformation of my business that was once more of a static print and website directory to where now we are this living, breathing community where people can engage and connect and find resources. Well, that's an amazing story. And I wanted to ask you, so if you've created over 350 episodes in three years, then that tells me that you learned very quickly how to use a virtual platform. Well, it happened, I'd say it didn't happen that quick, but I will tell you, like everything, muscle memory and seeing what can go wrong multiple times. I've learned a lot of lessons. And so nowadays when I convene these meetings, I'll have a speaker or somebody, a book author or something, they're like, wow, you really... are running this meeting very effectively. And I said, look, it's just practice. It wasn't like this three years ago. And was this, is this through Zoom, your platforms? Primarily through Zoom and I'll tell you the reason that there are some really interesting platforms I mean I probably In the beginning, you know probably tried at least a dozen different platforms and actually some Modifications like there's a there's a zoom events platform that I would love to use But here's the thing that I've discovered is that while there might be other platforms that have features everybody knows how to get on a Zoom meeting. And this needs to be easy. The technology should not rule the point of getting on a discussion. And so whenever I would experiment with different platforms, I found, even if it's one or two people that were frustrated with the experience, I just, my default, I go back to Zoom because it's, at this point, It's like a push button telephone for online meetings. Everybody knows how to do it. Yeah, I agree. So you've started talking about the pandemic and how the pandemic just revolutionized your business and how you network and communicate with both caregivers, people who are receiving the care, like seniors, and then also professionals. So how has the pandemic reshaped the concept of aging in place or solo aging? Oh man, I love this question. And actually today I was just delivering a keynote and I brought this up there. So it's kind of fresh in my mind. So the first thing is that we know AARP, the study says most Americans want to age in place. Okay. And I know that your listeners probably, they've either said it themselves or they've had a relative that said, Oh, I'm not going to one of those places. I'm, I'm staying right here. You're going to have to take me out in the box. You know that, that I hear that statement or a statement like that, or somebody's saying, I can't move my mom into a community, even though I feel it's unsafe because she said she's never leaving here. Now that's okay. And everybody's different. Okay. But if somebody, if you are saying that you are. gonna age in place and stay right where you are, there's a few things that we need to think about. Number one, you can't just say I'm gonna stay here and do nothing, okay, unless nothing happens to you. So, but what I found is there's sort of three elements that everybody needs to kind of take into consideration. The first is driving. Do you live in a car dependent neighborhood? and do you feel comfortable driving? Or is it safe to drive? And then ask yourself the question, what if I had to give up driving? What would my life be like here? In most areas, there are a lot of transportation alternatives, okay? But putting that burden on our children and our loved ones, that's not necessarily a solution. So driving is a key one. Mobility is another one. Is that, Okay, right now your home supports a healthy person who can go up and down stairs. But what if that was to change? What if you couldn't go up and down stairs anymore? What would aging in place look like then? And then the third thing is the cognitive impairment. And this is the heartbreaking thing that I talked to too many families about. And so this is why I know that it's a concern on aging in place. is that if you were to have a cognitive impairment, it could be an accident where you had brain damage or it could be Alzheimer's. Is that, would you be able to safely live in this home and age in place? And I like, aging in place is a great thing and it's a choice that we all have, but using it as an excuse not to plan or not to think about the future. is not an ideal solution. I would also add that aging in place, the first step to aging in place is not necessarily accessibilities and grab bars. It's sort of like in this room that I'm in right now, there's a light bulb in the ceiling. And ask yourself, is it safe for me to change that light bulb? And am I risking my health by changing that light bulb? by either not changing it, which is a solution that a lot of people do, or getting up on a rickety ladder and falling over, and now I'm in a nursing home, the place that I didn't wanna go. So that's one of my little soap docs things on aging in place, okay? But now let's insert the pandemic into this, is that pre-pandemic, I obviously talked to a lot of people that said, I'm not moving, I'm staying right here. Now, the pandemic has exposed to us all that loneliness and isolation is not healthy, okay? So when you're going through those checklists there of those three things that I was talking about, if you sort of imagine yourself through one of those conditions, being lonely and isolated in your home, well then either services or support or something might need to change in your home or... you may need to start thinking about where could I live that would minimize my loneliness and isolation. And that does not necessarily mean a senior living community. It might be an apartment in a walkable neighborhood. And so what I found is that there are, I feel like my conversations these days in brainstorming with people on aging in place with the recognition that, okay, I'm gonna stay here, but if I'm lonely and isolated, this is not healthy, and I should consider making a change, and what that change looks like is gonna be different for all of us. Okay. Yeah, those are all great points. And I can tell you as an OT, visiting patients for many, many years, that I would have patients that had bought this beautiful farm, you know, or a lake house, you know, they finally had their dream house. And that wasn't where they were aging in place, because it wasn't convenient. And the reality is that In order to age and place, you have to have easy access to transportation if you're no longer driving. And at some point, that may be a reality for all of us. And then also you have to have easy access to healthcare and quality healthcare, right? Not just your primary care physician, but be able to have access to specialists. So that's a great point. How has the pandemic influenced how the positive aging community has adapted its services to support people who want to age in place. Yeah, so I think the most significant way that my organization has changed is basically these online discussions that I was talking to you about. And I'm just like, the thing is, like being in business, oftentimes I kick myself. It's sort of like, why didn't I do this earlier? Why didn't I come up with this idea earlier? But really the thing is, is that pre-pandemic, if I had said, hey, I'm gonna have a weekly Zoom meeting, on the topic of solo aging, I might've gotten two people at that meeting, okay? Because, and this is the point to Zoom, is we did not know how to utilize this technology and it wasn't a normal part of our lives. The pandemic made Zoom a normal part of many people's lives and has enabled me to kind of transform this business to... communicate with people that pre-pandemic, yeah, I would go to like senior expos and health expos and we'd have conversations or people might call me on the phone and have some dialogue. But we were never getting 150 people in a room, all kind of sharing their ideas and resources on a specific topic. So that's been pretty exciting, but I'm continually trying to be creative. in the way that I run this community and try to help people with their, find solutions to their challenges. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, Zoom has been an amazing platform myself. It really, even though the pandemic was terrible, there were silver linings. And one of them was that we all became more comfortable with interacting in a virtual format. And so communication was facilitated. So that's been wonderful. and I'll share another sort of technical, you know, technology Zoom kind of focus thing. And this was during the pandemic, there were many people that were just devastated because they couldn't hug their mom because their mom was in a nursing home in quarantine and they weren't able to hug them. And And I talked to many of these people and I'm thinking about one in particular that was just, you know, every time I saw her talk to her, she was just devastated that she couldn't connect with her mom. But her mom was in a nursing home that was about, uh, let's say a couple of hours away from where she lived. So pre-pandemic on a good week, she was visiting her mom once. Okay. And maybe talking on the phone a little bit. But now, you know, she got mom hooked up on FaceTime and she's doing FaceTime with her mom three or four times a day, you know? And it's sort of like, it's easy to sort of, you know, I would try to gently remind her that, hey, look, you know, I know you wanna see her, but you weren't seeing her that much. You see her four times a day now. And so yes, you're not giving her a hug, but you... on a good week, you're only given a one hug, you know, and, and it's very hard when we're in challenging situations to look at the bright spot. But I really think for our industry as a whole, the, the fact that we can now connect with each other digitally, very easily, no matter where we are, whether it be a senior living community or across the country is, is a step in the right direction. Yeah, I agree. So pivoting the conversation, you've talked about loneliness, isolation, and the effect that has on people's health, especially older adults. Can you share with us the psychological and physical health implications that having prolonged isolation and loneliness, what that does to a person? Well, again, I'm not clinical here, but what's interesting is that what comes to mind is a study that was done many years ago. I think right when I was in the beginnings of my business, 30 years ago, and it was talking about dementia and talking about how older adults who, were isolated and alone, like going to live in somebody's basement, you know, would begin to show signs of what looked like dementia because they weren't living a purposeful life. And I used to quote to people, I'd say, look, you know, if you put a 16 year old in your basement and you, and you, and they were living the same life that your mom and dad are, they might show signs that, that sort of resemble dementia. I think that everybody's personality is different, but at some point, engaging with others is healthy. And I, you know, when I talk about the aging in place thing that we talked about earlier, every now and then, you know, somebody will say, well, yeah, but I don't wanna live with groups of people. I don't wanna, I'm okay being alone. I'm comfortable with that. And I think to a certain extent that some personalities may suit that better, but it's just every study on longevity has shown that being part of a community and is healthy and leads to a longer life. And so we need to do everything that we can to help people with that. And this sort of dovetails into something another soapbox thing that I get on quite frequently, and that is intentionally building and managing our personal village is, is that through life, we tend to just sort of collect friends, families, neighbors, and resources, but we don't really think about how can these people help me if I need help? And then how can I help them if they need help? How let's have a conversation. Let's let's look at this as a way that we can affordably help each other move through the chapters of our lives. And this is such a great solution for a lot of things, especially for solo agers. So if it, I mean, you're somebody who has a big family, generally, you know, because I hear from their kids, it's sort of like, oh, wow. you know, dad had a fall and now I'm gonna come into town, rearrange my life and I'm gonna take care of dad. Like it's sort of a default, you know, but a solo wager may not have that backstop and intentionally looking at our personal village can help and it's even more important for these families who have children that live out of town, you know, is that... Just imagine if your mom and dad had this documented internal, you know, personal village and you came into town and they're like, here's my best friend's number, these are the neighbor's numbers, I've talked to them about, you know, my rehab and they're willing to help. That can save a lot of adult children a lot of grief. Yeah, yeah, I agree with you. I want to talk to you and ask you about having intergenerational connections. I know that it's extremely important. There have been studies that show that in communities where you have older people and they have interaction with the younger people that the crime rate actually decreases in that area. So tell us what you think and how your positive aging community encourages us. I love the topic of intergenerational connections. But, and this dovetails out of the opposite of intergenerational connections is a very age segregated and ageist viewpoint of the world. So the first thing that we need to do is combat ageism and recognize that every single living person is growing old at the same exact rate. You don't just automatically start aging with an AERP card. You start aging on the delivery room table. And so the first thing is one of the criticisms of senior living communities that people don't realize why they are not interested in moving to a community like that is because it's age segregated. It's sort of like, this is a legally segregated community where young people can't live there. Okay, so that's one of the problems that's out there, ageism and age segregation, okay? So now the solution to this is intergenerational connections. And the first thing is, is that not even thinking about senior living communities is, as we are cultivating our personal village is... trying to make connections with people of all ages. I tell you, there is a, I've seen in my own community some amazing connections with single parents, with children and solo agers without children. The connection that these two groups have and the similarities that these two groups have are amazing. In fact, I would say. they have a better connection than let's say a single older adult and her best friend who is married. Because the single parent raising the kids, the elder can really help there. It gives the elder purpose. The kids get that connection. The single parent needs a partner, wants a partner, and the elder can be that partner. And so I've seen some amazing connections in that space. outside of sort of a senior living community. Inside the senior living communities, there's some just fabulous intergenerational programming that's out there. And so even if you are moving into a community, oftentimes on a weekly basis, there are just some very innovative intergenerational programs that are there. And I just think that there's so much more opportunity that we can do in this space. And I think, you know, my dream is, is that, you know, 30 years from now, the same way that we look back at sort of the archaic behaviors of sexism and racism, that we, we look back and we say, gosh, remember when we had those old folks homes? So glad we don't have those anymore because we've sort of cracked the code to figure out how we can all live together and care for each other. Yeah, that's great. And what about policies that need to be put in place in order to help people age in place? What can you tell us about them? Well, so this event that I was speaking at this morning was a legislative event in Northern Virginia where I live. And they had these various platforms that they are proposing. And they really, many of them center around affordability is that basically there is not an adequate inventory of affordable. housing that is available for older adults. There are, you know, if somebody needs assisted living and they don't have the money, there is no sort of public financing that's out there to defray that cost. And that, there's, the world, when we talk about affordability is broken down in my view into three different groups. You've got folks that qualify for low income. opportunities. They just need to get on waiting lists. You know, there's not a lot there, but you get on the waiting list. And then you've got people with money. But in between what you have is what I used to call the caught between the cracks group. And now it's called the forgotten middle. This group has to be super creative. And I hope that our policymakers can come up with solutions that can help that huge forgotten middle group because that's really needed. The other policy area that we really need to pay attention to is the caregivers, the caregiver training, the caregiver compensation, and the fact that the people that are taking care of our elders right now are not going to be able to pay to take, have somebody to take care of them. And we've got to sort of crack the code on how we can, we can meet those needs. And I think it's going to have to be some public policy in those two spaces to be a solution. So with the ladder, that is a huge problem in the senior communities. And that is a big reason why people choose not to move to those settings if they can, if they still have those choices. So with you being so interconnected with these communities, right, you've been doing this for over 33 years, you have many connections. What are these companies doing to... make better what's happening in their businesses. Because I know as an occupational therapist, I've been to many facilities, independent, assisted and memory care, where you have constant turnover, okay? And this is turnover from the home health aides or the aides that work in those communities to the nurses that are in charge of the whole show. We would see one nurse work in one community and then six months later she was in another community and then a year later she was in another one. It was like a revolving door. They just kept moving and this is a huge problem because you don't have continuation of care. You know there's often very little training for these people who are providing the caregiving and doing the work and let's face it can be very challenging work physically and emotionally. They're often handling medications. So it's also a very high risk job. And a lot goes wrong when people aren't trained properly and then when they're constantly leaving. So, and it's very expensive to live in these communities. So I still don't understand why the pay isn't there for the people who do the hardest work. No, it's not there on one hand, because the other conversation that I have with all the consumers is, I can't believe how expensive this is, like $35 an hour, whatever it is. Now, one solution that's out there to these problems is sharing care and shared housing and the golden girl's way of living. And so, you know, One thing that I hope starts happening more is that individuals will, um, and, and senior living communities will create more shared models, like suites similar to what we lived in and what some college kids live in, where you can use less square footage and you can put more people in there for a lower cost. But the same goes to home care is, is that, you know, wouldn't it make sense that if we could, I mean, the caregiver that is working literally across the street from me, there could be three women in that house and she's being paid the same amount of money, you know, and, but now we've lowered the cost for the consumer. And if we're splitting it three ways, now we might be able to increase how much she's being compensated. And so, These are huge problems and I'll tell you, I mean, we've got so many problems for, we've got the same problem in the forgotten middle that we have in the lower income. And I wish I had a solution. That's why I always kind of default back to this building of our personal villages, because if you can supplement your home care with your next door neighbor hanging out at your house for a couple of days. that could save you thousands of dollars every month. Yeah, yeah, you're right. Now, when I was still seeing patients, it was during the pandemic, and I experienced where at first, they were still allowing us to come in. They weren't allowing family members to come in anymore, but healthcare workers were still allowed to come in. I would say about two months into the pandemic, they changed the rules so that only... residents who required nursing because they had a wound or were diabetic could have a nurse come visit them. And then they weren't allowing occupational therapists or physical therapists or social workers speech therapists to come in anymore. Okay. And of course, you know that they weren't allowing family members to come in. This is a huge problem. Okay. Especially with what we experienced with the pandemic is that it went on for really about three years. Because even after we had the vaccine, if there was a breakout in that facility, then they would shut it down again. So now we were back to, or the residents were back to being isolated. Do you know how a senior living communities will face these challenges in the future if let's say we have you know another bad strain of COVID or god forbid another virus and we're faced with this situation again. Yeah, so I don't have a crystal ball, but one thing I can tell you is it's gonna be a lot easier. And here's why, is that the, because we as a society have gone through this already. And I just keep my fingers crossed that there's not gonna be anything widespread. But what I've seen, the reason that I say that it's gonna be a better experience is that I've seen this in isolated situations where... Um, like as an example, you know, there was a senior living community that I had an event at, um, a few months ago that had a COVID outbreak and basically, you know, instead of what seemed like hysteria, you know, back when this first started, it was just, Hey, look, we're, we can't have visitors in the main building, we're renting a tent and we're going to hold this event outside. And, you know, the, I think that we've got a lot more creative in this area. I'm also sort of, we also have technology. I mean, it was sort of like, we were drinking out of a fire hose when this all first hit us for probably the first year and a half, you know, we're learning what technology works. We're buying masks less left and right. We're doing, you know, home delivery, all this crazy stuff. And the thing that I think is really cool is that all that stuff is still in place and being used in most settings every day. So I think it'll be a lot easier. I was talking about somebody the other day, I was just, I'm almost like in shock that we pulled this off as a worldwide society, like everybody wearing masks and staying in your home and all this stuff. It's a little bit scary because we know that we can easily flip that switch back again and go into that mode. And I think the thing that we're all gonna be questioning now and you see this already is that, you know, okay, just because the CDC says that we are need to do this, there's gonna be all kinds of folks sort of questioning that decision, which is a little bit scary too. Yeah. Now there's one last topic that I want to cover with you. So you've said that most people want to age in place. ARP has done studies that show that it's 85 to 90 percent of the U.S. population wants to age in place. Now, obviously, not everyone can do that. It's not safe for everyone to do that. There may come a time where the safest... a place for a person to be is in an assisted living or memory care unit. So there's another challenge that is, that has been going on with the senior living communities for a long time, which is that people are waiting. you know, to the very last moment to move into one of these facilities. So let's say you have one that's considered an independent living, which technically they don't provide services to help people do their activities of daily living, like dressing and bathing. Usually people are presumed to be independent. Right. But what we're seeing is. that the people that are moving into the independent living already have a mobility device, have separate falls, and then in turn, the people that are moving to an assisted living may really benefit more from a memory care living environment. And I know that these facilities are taking these residents because they're desperate to just get people to move into their buildings, right? can change, what can be done so that people can move at the appropriate time and we're not caught in this situation where people are living in the wrong setting and not receiving the services that they need. Yeah, so this, I mean, this is such a tough, tough nut to crack because it's, we're dealing with, you know, people's sense of independence and the, and in general, yeah, I would say there are some independent living communities that are out there, but, they resemble assisted living maybe 20 years ago, is that for the most part, most people tend to be hesitant to sort of make a move before they have some kind of crisis. And then they have that crisis and it's sort of like, what do you mean I can't move to the independent community? So then they move into the independent community and within two weeks, they've got a home care provider coming in. to enable them to function. And going back to my topic on ageism and age segregation, that is one of the challenges. This is that we all live right now in neighborhoods with black, white, single, married, divorced, young, old. And it's sort of like when somebody is sort of presented with the, you really should move to... this age segregated environment, their reaction is, no, I'm not ready for that. I don't need that yet. And when they need that, they don't want to go to the place that really provides the appropriate care. They want to go to the place that they passed on when they were totally independent. And I don't know what we can do. I think that getting creative in the design and the implementation of our communities, you know, the community that might have college students living in it on a college campus would probably be more appealing to somebody, you know, or, I don't know, an assisted living community that had a school in the basement or something like that. Now it's a little bit more engaging and not like the reason that you're moving here is because you can't do stuff anymore. Do you know if the leaders in these business sectors are recognizing that people do not like their model, that their model doesn't work? I think they recognize it, but I think that the, there are a lot of the people that are running and leading these individual buildings, their hands are kind of tied behind their back, is that, you know, hey, here's the numbers that you've gotta make, and here's the expenses, it's like, hey, I got this great idea, we're gonna do this, well, that's gonna cost money, and then, so. Hopefully what we're going to see and you see a little bit of it out there Probably more than a little bit of it out there, but it can only happen one town at a time But there are some new innovative ways that people are looking at this But I think a lot of this is going to be the consumer you know to sort of starting to demand things that aren't on the menu and And hopefully over time you will see significant change Well, thank you, Steve. This is very important, informative. I learned a lot. I think there's a lot of work to be done out there, especially in the realm of the senior living communities. And hopefully organizations like yours can help them move in the right direction. Yeah, I love what you're doing and it's having conversations like this. If we can change one person to sort of think a little bit differently or inspire a conversation or thought with their loved ones, it can really become infectious and impact their whole family and start moving towards a new way of thinking with various life transitions. So Steve, someone who wants to access your weekly platform and your source book, how do they do that? The easiest way is just go to proaging.com. Pro is in professional, aging is growing older. And when you get there, you can order a source book, you can jump in and register for one of our discussions. You can listen to over 350 recordings and podcasts of previous discussions that we had. And most importantly, just feel free to... reach out to me directly when you get to ProAging.com. You know, just find the contact button and you can schedule time with me or pick up the phone. And I love brainstorming with folks. Okay, well great. I will provide all of the links in the show notes of the show and your contact information. And then that way we make it very easy for you to get in touch with Steve. Thank you so much, Steve. I really enjoyed our conversation. Thank you.