Research shows that 70% of our longevity is dictated by our lifestyle choices. Our place of being is an important lifestyle choice – even more so as we age. In order to live our best life, we need to reflect on what we assume about place. Join Cathleen today as she speaks to Ryan Frederick, the Founder and CEO of SmartLiving 360, a strategy consulting and real estate development firm specializing in healthy aging and housing. During his time at Stanford Business School, he lived in a senior living community in order to better understand the effects of place. His first book, Right Place, Right Time: The Ultimate Guide to Choosing a Home for the Second Half of Life, is a best-selling guide for adults who are considering a move in their next chapter.
Episode 39: Ryan serves on the National Advisory Board of the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing and is a Fellow for Nexus Insights, a think tank advancing the well-being of older adults through innovative models of housing and healthcare. He publishes a consumer blog and other consumer content at www.smartliving360.com.
Ryan is a graduate of Princeton and Stanford University, and currently lives in Austin, Texas with his wife and three children.
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Cathleen Toomey
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Cathleen: If you're doling out advice about getting older, you best know what you're talking about. Author and entrepreneur, Ryan Frederick certainly took that to heart during his time at Stanford business school. He lived in a senior living community in order to better understand the effects of place. What he discovered and then built his professional life around is that place matters even more so as we age and that to live our best life, we need to reflect on what we assume about place. Welcome to Seniority Authority. I'm your host, Cathleen Toomey. Welcome to Seniority Authority. I'm your host, Cathleen Toomey and I track down experts to answer your questions on aging. Let's get smarter about growing older. Thanks to our show sponsor, the Riverwoods Group. Northern New England's largest family of nonprofit retirement communities where active adults find community, purpose, and peace of mind, visit riverwoodsgroup.org. I first met Ryan at a retreat he held for the Riverwoods group in his role as founder of a smart living 360 a consulting and real estate company that he founded that focuses on healthy aging and housing. His new book, Right Place, Right Time is an excellent guide for adults who are considering a move in their next chapter. Welcome to the program, Ryan. It's thrilling to have you here.
Ryan: Thanks so much appreciate it.
Cathleen: Coming to us from Austin Texas but experienced all over the country. I just want to start out the conversation by saying what motivated you to live in a senior living community at the, in your 20s. Did you have a hard time getting people to agree to let you in the door?
Ryan: Yeah it was, it's a funny story. So yeah at Stanford they have something called the design school, they called the D school and the idea it's all about experiencing, taking ideas and iterating on them and giving them life but learning in real life like how do they work and the idea that you're developing empathy for how users engage with design and so that was part of the idea was if I'm going to focus more of my life on the impact of place and people as we age best to start off actually like living in a community. So my wife, we didn't have kids at the time but my wife wasn't as enthusiastic about it as I was. So in the end she opted to have me go alone. So I was working for summarize senior living at the time this for a summer internship. And we were in D. C. I went down to Atlanta to live in an independent living community called Hunt Cliff Summit and at that point my wife said kind of sayonara, she headed back to California and I was the only male and only person under 75 on my wing.
Cathleen: Oh my gosh!
Ryan: So not that I was hurting for self-confidence but my goodness the number of unsolicited cookies and you know brunch invitations, it was great. I felt pretty popular.
Cathleen: Tell me just stepping even back further. Most young people are designing apps to deliver beer to their dorm room and you know, all kinds of, what made you curious about aging in your twenties at the time when aging certainly hasn't been in the national conversation way back when you started.
Ryan: Yeah, I'll give you the abridged version. The unabridged version probably is best over a beer. But what happened was I, this is not a path I would have anticipated. And it's interesting. We have three teenagers, our oldest is a junior and she is pretty focused right now. She wants to be a judge. And I back when I was her age and I was focused on engineering in technology and I studied electrical engineering in college and worked in Silicon Valley right afterwards, initially for an investment bank, but then worked for a startup. It went public soon after I was there. I was thinking this business thing is pretty pretty easy and actually about 20 years ago now because it had similar time frame of the Enron blow up the smaller software. But public company had some similarities and there was some unethical things that happened in the company and a handful of people went to jail and I took a step back and it was a wake up call for me, I was, what do I want to do with my life and who do I want to do it with? And it made me take a step back. And I felt that I was really passionate about innovation, how can we do things better, but it didn't necessarily mean it had to be technology and I wanted to do something that better integrated my brain and my heart, where could I use my gifts and feel like I made a difference. And yeah, and I was always close to my grandparents, I was involved in a a buddy program in an assisted living community when I was in sixth grade art teacher had a passion about it. And so she brought our class over to little gardens was named in the community and we went there once a month. But my partner, Melvin Rowland's, she was there just because she was her main ailment, which she was blind but otherwise healthy. And and so we really connected and we continue to meet in 7th and 8th grade when the program, the class didn't do it anymore. We just had a relationship and my grandparents around the East Coast and so I didn't get to see them as often. So in a way she was a surrogate grandmother for me. So I think these seeds got planted. And then later on when I had that reflection after the technology company, I said, well what if maybe I should just take a bed here in the summer thinking about better understanding place and healthy aging and that's really where it started. And and that summer I walked away pretty charged because I felt that while this is again is a bit about 15 years ago now I felt that while senior living does a number of really good things. I walked away from that summer knowing it could be better. And I shared what I was doing with classmates and friends of mine at Stanford, they're like what are you doing your what what? So now ironically more people, even classmates are now focusing on some of the opportunities related to aging. So I was probably a little ahead of my time
Cathleen: You certainly were.
Ryan: But I think things are I think we're at a really good time right now.
Cathleen: That's fantastic. As evidenced by your successful real estate company and consulting company and you're really busy but you took the time and addition the three girls you took the time to write a book, why write a book on top of the family, the two companies, the travel.
Ryan: Yeah. No great question. And to add to that I get thinking about our kids. Our daughter took the P. S. A. T. recently and I'm having flashbacks when I took that in high school. The math was fine but the English suggested I was English as a second language. There was no doubt in part to avoid all reading and writing. But yeah just like Cathleen I got a lot of questions from friends and family which I do. How do I should I should I think about it and have a brother in law who was a successful author and he kept needling me because he was getting questions related to aging. He's a psychologist and I just eventually capitulated and got a book agent and wanted to go down that path. And this is you know, well before the pandemic and then road probably about a third of it before the maybe quarter before the pandemic. The pandemic hit. And I was like oh gosh, now I got to rewrite some of this and then obviously the pandemic spent off on so many ways. However, it has put this spotlight on place and also around the idea, a reminder that we don't live forever. So are we doing with our lives what we want to do as well. And and so yeah, it was really a number of small things that added up and pushed me over to then decide to write the book.
Cathleen: Well, I really enjoyed the book and highlighted a number of passages and what I liked about it is that it is a template for people who are considering the pros and cons of moving and it really goes through your decision-making process. It doesn't point you in a certain direction, but it asked very poignant questions that each person should start considering and after all your research and all your writing. I want to ask you the question that I get asked often, which is the big number of questions right at what age should someone start considering a move from their original home, if they're thinking about it, at what age should they start the process of thinking?
Ryan: I think they should think before their kids leave.
Cathleen: Wow, okay.
Ryan: That's part of what happened. So I wrote the book in part because I spent all these years I guess as an insider knowing how these different living environments are what they're like and wanted to use that information to share it with people that aren't necessarily as knowledgeable. But I learned a ton in the writing process because one thing I learned is that place is actually much more significant than I thought. One of the parallels I used for people is if if we're focused on living a longer, healthier life and you're thinking about well my eating well, am I exercising, am I saving? Like place should just be just as high on that list. And so when you're in college, you're fifties for those that do have kids as one proxy. It's earlier. If you don't at least the number of families are included in our life does tend to revolve a bit more about the kids and we would care to acknowledge because are you in a good school district and those things better for place. But once your kids get launched shortly before they get launched, I think there's these key questions, like recognizing that life longevity is more about lifestyle than genetics, only about 30% of our longevity is linked to longevity. So it's more about purpose and social connection and physical wellbeing and so on. So I think at that point you start to ask either individually or with a partner, what do we want this life to look like? And so I think if the question is when should we start planning or thinking about it? I really think it's that early and then now you may not necessarily make a big change, but at least it gives you a sense of introduces the conversation in an exciting way, frankly in an exciting, optimistic way that says, what do we want this life to look like? And recognizing the place oftentimes is a really key platform for the life that you want to live.
Cathleen: I think that is perfect. First of all, it's not the answer I was expecting and not the answer I've ever heard from anyone else and I think it is spot on because of a couple of things that you just mentioned. One is is an optimistic choice. You are choosing what you want your life to look like. So it is not a choice that is made or dictated by health or what you need. It's really what you desire. And then the second thing you brought up, which is really important and I want to emphasize that for our listeners is that 30% only 30% of our longevity is dictated by our genetics, only 30% 70% is your lifestyle. And that does connect to place. And it does mean we have a lot of opportunity to direct our own result, direct our own life, have the life that we choose. And then I think the third point is that it's more desirable the younger you are because you have more energy, frankly, having just made a move a couple of months ago, you have more energy to do the downsizing and the move and recover and reposition and get your new group of friends, etcetera. So I think that for those factors, this is a really dramatic and different answer, but it's a great answer and it gives you time to think and process and discuss and read a book that lays that all out.
Ryan: And we didn't anticipate this Cathleen. It's funny how life can work. And we moved from Baltimore the mid Atlantic to Austin about 2.5 years ago, I had committed to write the book I was outlining at that point, I didn't realize that we were necessarily eating your own dog food. That wasn't the plan, but I was like, jeez, this is what we're doing. Like we're making a big decision about place. It may not be the last decision about place. I think that's one of the things that I learned writing the book as well, is even where the title came from, right place, right time. It means that we're best having at least a regular calibration to say is the place that we're in truly the best place for us at a different stage in time. Most often that doesn't mean a moves involved. Like most often it may mean there's some tweaking, ways to get more involved in my community. Maybe there's some ways to reach out to friends in a way that I haven't recently, maybe there's a way to remodel part of my house. But this calibration that another thing that I learned in writing it was there's a dual change agent happening. Like we change our preferences change or health may change our relationships may change. But also place changes. Like let's say you've been living in your single-family home for decades, you've had the same address. The address is literally the same. But the place around you in most cases has changed.
Cathleen: Good point.
Ryan: You know, the metropolitan area has changed. Traffic may have changed. So just because your address hasn't changed, doesn't mean that your place hasn't. So that's another element. Think about it earlier. But recognize that there's some real value in some regular calibration to see if you are in the best place at each time.
Cathleen: I love that concept that yes, you can be at the same address, but everything around you is changing. And that is true. And I also believe that the regular calibration makes sense that the more and more I talk to people, the more and more I realize that it's not a one and done conversation when you talk about any aspect of aging, it's where am I now for the next 5, 10 years and then you check it again. And you in your book, came up with a tool that I think is terrific that helps you create that calibration called the personal healthy aging dashboard and that is a, just a brilliant concept. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about that and you unveil it in Chapter two. So it's a great way to crystallize what's going on in your life?
Ryan: Yeah, Cathleen, I'm glad you mentioned. In fact there's something I'm going to share, exciting about that particular piece in a moment. So I didn't want to write a book that was a checklist book, like I think that there's a value in that, but there were other resources for that. I wanted to grow people to think more deeply about this decision that really matters. And also helped them redefine how they think about place both as a direct and indirect variable, which I think the dashboard speaks to as well as helping people think about place not just as the four walls, but as your neighborhood as are you in a rural, urban, suburban area? What metropolitan area? What region of the country, what state even what country? So make sure that we see place broadly enough and also better appreciate the ways in which it really impacts our lives and the dashboard. I wanted to make it interactive for people and so I have break out those five areas which I gripped out as purpose, social connection, physical wellbeing, financial wellbeing, and then place more directly and have a set of questions there for people to really ask about and then with these bars of kind of 1-4, where do you personally think you might fit on that area in terms of complete full ability there or perhaps there's some gaps there and and there's been a really strong response to that assessment tool, Cathleen, so I'm glad you raised it. I write this book, put a draft shirt with some friends and people liked it. But since the books, but now that's what a lot of people have found to be particularly valuable, what I'm doing right now and will be available here and next week or so on the Smart living 360 website. We're creating a digital version of that assessment so people can easily answer those questions and it spits out a little graph for you with some ideas. So a way to easily engage on that because I felt that it seemed to be useful, you know, for people.
Cathleen: Ryan, I think that's a great idea and our listeners when you check the show notes, you'll have links to where to buy Ryan's book as well as his website, Smarter Living 360 and will pinpoint where you can download that dashboard, that's terrific. You can go right from this podcast and to your dashboard and the fact that you have ideas is a terrific way to kind of kick start the conversation. I think that this makes a lot of sense and it is more deep thinking book than just a simple checklist. And you mentioned at Stanford, you went to the D school and you Applied Design Thinking, which is typically associated with tech companies like Apple and Google to the idea of senior living, which is one of the most antiquated industry. So it's right for innovation and I say that being a proud member of the industry. If you're getting smarter, help us reach more minds. Leave us a review on apple podcasts, so others know we're legit. Tell your friends to follow us on social or subscribe to our newsletter at Sseniorityauthority.org. Tell us more about design thinking and how that influences you and the communities that you're involved in.
Ryan: Yeah, so the design thinking it's a bit of a fancy term in a way, but it's pretty simple because the way to think about innovation and like I shared earlier, having a hypothesis an idea and then build a prototype around that idea, test it out is it is the real world, react to it the way you had imagined in all likelihood, not perfectly. There's things that you learn and then what you do is you take those learnings, you alter, change your prototype and you try it all over it. And that way of thinking has applications in the senior living field. It also has really important personal applications as we think about place. So I'll start with the personal application first. So one thing that I found is that people have ideas of what they want their life to look like as they get older, sometimes those ideas, they can be exciting, but sometimes those ideas are rooted a bit more in fantasy land than necessarily reality. And so you may have imagined. We'll give an example. There's a couple here, an acquaintance in the Austin area live in our neighborhood, they're in their sixties, they had decided they wanted to, the kids that left they want to downsize, and they left the neighborhood and we live actually pretty close to downtown. So only about 15 minutes away. But they wanted to be in an urban walkable environment where everything was right there. So they did that they sold their house and moved into a condo downtown. They were really excited about it and he could walk to his job and they could go to these nice restaurants and museums and first like six months I think they really enjoyed it. But they then found that they missed their friends, their friends where they were used to live and they had a hard time making new friends in the new place they were part of and after a year or so they said, I'm not so sure we made the right decision. And so they ended up and selling their condo and then buying a house back in the neighborhood they used to live in and they fortunately had some resources to pull that off, but that can be an expensive mistake given the transaction cost, moving costs and all those things. So what they might have been better served using design thinking to say, okay, our hypothesis is we think we want to be in an urban environment. But how about we try it first. How about we maybe do an Airbnb for a week, perhaps a month. Even better. Maybe we rent our house for a year, and we rent an apartment or condo downtown for a year. So we haven't committed, but we can really see is this what we think it is. And after that period of time then be in a much more confident position to say, yeah, this is what we want. So I think as a really important design thinking for for personal, personal domain and in fact, that's a really key piece I think of the book to help people think through that on the industry side and the real estate developers and people creating these communities. We too, I need to use some of these principles to say, okay, well we know some of the models need to change. How can we test some of these ideas before we decide to make what can be really big bets, you know, millions, tens of millions of dollars when they decided to build a new community, for example, renovated community. So I often we’re in that capacity with groups to think through how can we validate some of these ideas before we make bigger commitments?
Cathleen: That makes so much sense. And in fact, I know a good number of couples who have done exactly what you mentioned on the personal side where they've said, we want to be in a walkable downtown. They've moved, they've sold and there is something in us. I don't know if it's our Americanism or whatever that you just says, we're going to make this decision and go for it, sell the home pack up and as opposed to a more measured approach of we'll rent our house Airbnb for six months and we'll try it downtown for six months. And I think it's good to think about that as an option for us as we get older. And as there's a lot of fear with aging that you can make a decision that's not irreversible. Just think more creatively about the different ways you can play with your choices.
Ryan: It's huge. It's huge. And even in the senior living domain and I work with some groups and I can see firsthand the positive impact that the right senior living community can have on individual or couple. There's a client of mine in Seattle and they did some consumer research with an academic university, and they saw the research that came back was pretty powerful. There was one woman who said I've, the quote was I've lived my entire life in Seattle, but it wasn't home for me until I moved into this retirement, wow, powerful sentiment. However, just like any community got to make sure it's the right thing for you. It might be perfect for one person. Could be the worst option for another. And so I think in the context of senior living, I think it's important for people to really find ways to get comfortable with that fit. And I think it's important for living communities to make sure that people are comfortable with it as well. Works both ways because, you know, you hate to be in a situation where it's a misfit and then it's not good for them. It's not good for the community. And in some cases some of those decisions can be a bit irreversible. So I think it's good for both sides, individual and the communities to be open about. How do we make sure this really is a great fit all the way around?
Cathleen: Yes, because it's a very important decision. What do you think are the benefits of your work and create senior living communities? And you've given a lot of thought to aging. Why do you think it's a benefit or why would you recommend someone moved to a senior living community. What do you think the advantages are?
Ryan: Yeah. So, you know, you mentioned earlier that and I did this very intentionally. I don't make any recommendations, but I’m pretty diligent about giving people the ways to think about it in the pros and cons of different approaches, but I do have a chapter dedicated to rant really on aging in place and how I think it's an awful term, and I think the term itself makes it feel like it's something that's happening to you as opposed to you being an agent in your lived experience. And then in place feels like you're like a statue.
Cathleen: Like you’re not moving.
Ryan: Totally in all the research around healthy living and aging, it's the exact opposite, it's about engagement, it's about moving. So I think that too does a disservice, but I'm the biggest disservice really is I think quite a number of people are under this presumption that aging in place or living in my single family home I've lived in for decades in the suburbs. That's kind of typical example is really my default strategy and that's my plan. I'm going to do that. And then they don't really think through the complexities of that. And very importantly, this idea that there might be a better life for you in a different place and that requires some courage. Absolutely. To think that there are these exciting other doors to consider. And so I think one of the first steps is acknowledgement, that potential acknowledgement that where you live currently actually isn't the best place for you and if you get to that point and that's again, with that dashboard can be helpful. Are there gaps? If there aren't gaps, then hey, you're in a great spot, but if there are gaps then perhaps that's when. Okay, well how do I fill some of these gaps, recognizing that each of the areas I outlined her purpose, social connection, physical wellbeing, financial wellbeing in place. Each of those are really critical factors in healthy longevity. And so the way I see it, then Cathleen, is if you've identified where there are these gaps for some individuals, senior living can be a great bridge for people can be great solution because it may take social connection, for example, supposed to have one of these archetypes in the book where now you have a single woman in her late seventies, places changed around her family's not close by and she sees some immediate opportunities around social connection, but she also sees the benefits of having a plan for when there may be some health challenges and what does that look like. So when it works, it works. It's awesome. In fact, there was a Wall Street Journal op ed piece came up last week with a woman writing about a community, she lives in North Carolina and she her point was, yeah, this actually can be a great option for people that can afford it because it's often much better than is characterized in the media was her point.
Cathleen: Yes, it was Dr. Esty I interviewed her last week on the podcast. Well, that's fantastic. Yeah. She actually wrote a book called 80 some things and she wrote it at 85. Yeah, I know. So she's pretty fantastic person. Go ahead.
Ryan: That's an example, right? Of it's a small world. That's a perfect example of someone living rich additional chapters in senior living. But it's not for everyone for a bunch of reasons. So a lot of it's around that fit. But when it works, it can be fantastic based on the examples we collectively shared.
Cathleen: What I admire Ryan about what you are doing is encouraging people to think and to step back and assess their life through this dashboard and make their own decisions. Don't just live on assumptions. Don't live on this has been, my house has been perfect for me when I raise Children. So it's going to be perfect for me forever. You chose the house, many people typically based on the school district and the size of the family and the neighborhood and for many people, you did your job, your kids are launched. Some of them may have boomerang back, but eventually they will leave. And so what's next for you and you can look at that with optimism, not as, oh, it's all over. I'm just going to cling to this home where all these things happened. There's more to life. And I absolutely love the fact that you are replacing the term aging in place with living in community. I think that is long overdue by this industry and by people in general because we are all living in some kind of community that we choose or we don't choose and it is an act of agency. So the fact that our language that you're suggesting is now imbued with more purpose that you're not just sitting there stuck like a statue you are choosing to live where you're living. Even not moving is a choice.
Ryan: It's a choice. And it's crazy today. They say about experts point out about 50% of kids born in developed countries like the US are expected to live to 100. So this in fact Stanford their center and longevity. They've launched an effort that came out with a report last week called the new map of life which talks about the societal changes and even personal changes that are required to thrive over this 100-year life. And so, if you're thinking of that in that way and let's say you know your kids are gone and say your 50s and 50s, something like that. Well, you might have half of your life remaining.
Cathleen: Exactly.
Ryan: If you're making your decisions based on this prior role with kids and so on. Well then, you're doing yourself a disservice because it's not just another five or 10 years of living most likely it's a lot more. So many chapters can be part of that and it's scary. It takes courage to take a step back in something that there is no manual. Like when we're younger we go to elementary school and middle school and high school and most of us launch into college and there's like this map, get a career and we get jobs and we get married. There's like there's a there tend to be a little bit of a path generally, but when you get to midlife, there's no path. And when you look at uh you know, we talked about this when we're together, sometimes the ages and that we face in our culture suggest that older we get the worst life is yet. That's not what the research points to. There's this research around that U-shaped happiness curve that shows your certain level of self-reported wellbeing or happiness in your twenties and then you work your way down the negative slope until your late forties, early fifties. And I joke and I think it tends to have a correlation to having teenagers now, and then it starts to pick up. And so, in your seventies and eighties, people report being happier than they were in their twenties now. Nothing in our media would suggest that that's the narrative. But I do think that that's part of it, imagining what do you want this longer life to look like and recognizing that places like this really foundational piece and realizing what that vision looks like, but I do want to say it is hard, you have to give yourself the permission. I have a friend of mine that read an earlier draft of the book and I think he said it nicely, I want to grab a big glass of wine and you and your book gave me permission to do that, just think I want this and he recently gone through a divorce and so the number of things for him that were new variables and what do you want to look like? And and so I think that's part of it, but also it takes courage to do something to it takes courage to do that. I know it's hard if you're part of relationship or individually moving, I know it sounds like you've moved recently and we did a couple years ago and it's not easy, so you have to make sure it's the right decision, but then summon the energy and encourage and emotion to go do that. So I by no means am suggesting these are like easy things to think about and easy to act on. But what I do feel strongly about is it matters, really matters and for the things that really matter, they deserve that level of attention and consideration.
Cathleen: And you don't let people off the hook. You are not prescriptive in this book, you are not saying if you're this and this do this, if you're this and that do that and it is truly a thinker and planners book and it is a kind of book where you could, I could easily see a book group of a certain age of people having conversations around this. Are you and your partner having conversations, picking it up, putting it down, checking the dashboard, it is thought provoking and it's optimistic because you're exactly right. It's the same line that I used years ago in this little TTX thing that I did, which is my parents are 88, both 88 and there's no road map for how they are living. They did not expect to be this old, they expected to die in their 60s. And so it's unexpected for them. They didn't plan to live this way. They don't a lot of what they are living with, they're not happy about. But we are different. This generation of adults who are the boomers, you know, we've changed everything, changed every social convention and now we have the opportunity to live much, much longer. So, we have the responsibility of being thoughtful about it and responsibility and opportunity to redefine how all of this time is going to be spent.
Ryan: And I found Cathleen in writing it and then the response to it has been, it hits a number of generations because in your example, let's say places a factor in your life and place a factor in your parents lives and I wrote the book in a way that could be helpful for people making their own decisions, say in their eighties and and their kids, but also as a potential conversation piece across generations and now we're the holidays. It's a time when we tend to see some family and there could be some questions about it. One area that I have found, I mentioned this a bit in the book is that sometimes there's a tendency to know what's best for mom and dad and almost like when they know, you know, and so this element of personal agency of allowing people to make the decision that they wish to do, even if you feel as an adult child, that may not be the best decision. There's some wisdom in making sure that people are fully aware of the pros and cons of a path we're going down. But honoring that decision and of course it's different if you have situations perhaps where there's dementia or Alzheimer's and that's a different situation. But when people are of sound mind, it may be that the term that we both despise around aging in place, but maybe the aging in place, maybe it's not objectively the wisest thing, but maybe that really is what a loved one wants to do and they're educated on it and you just have to grin and bear it. I have a couple of friends where that's the situation right now, where that really is what their mom would like to do and they're honoring that. So my brother in law's a psychologist. You can speak better to some of those angles, but I know they're real and this isn't a logical, you must do this. There are some nuances in it. But the more that we can appreciate that matters and that we take agency and our decisions. I think that leads the best outcome because I've heard stories I'm sure you have to where people feel like they got place, they got put in senior living and or other environments and rarely is a happy resident.
Cathleen: And we have a saying here that everyone has a right to make a bad decision unless it endangers them or their fellow residents. And I think that's true with dealing with parents is they finally launched you as a child and let you make your own life and this is their life and you could argue until you're blue in the face, not that I'm speaking from personal experience and you could be very knowledgeable about senior living now that I'm speaking from personal experience and they could take none of your advice. So you have to respect that and support the decision that they're making because that is agency for them is saying I understand what you're saying that is not my choice. So I think you let it go and you support them and it can motivate you to think more deeply about choices that you're going to make when you're older and how open minded are you going to be because it's important to be intentional
Ryan: totally
Cathleen: In these decisions.
Ryan: I actually hired my daughter as the primary editor for the book and so it's been fun to have these conversations with someone who's 16 in her teens around. She jokes, she said, she said, Dad, I know far more about healthy aging as a 16 year old should. But you'll see it play out over time. I mean you'll have her agency and we'll have ours. And anyway, it's hard sometimes when you think you know what's best and maybe you do, but it's not how life really should work.
Cathleen: You may know what's best, but best isn't necessarily what that other person wants, but you are really ahead of the game talking about aging it to a 16 year old.
Ryan: She's great. Not always grateful about some of these but she’s great.
Cathleen: Well tell me when she's ready for an internship because we'll ship her up here. Anyone named Adelaide is someone I want to work with. I have another question relating to the pandemic and I want your thoughts on this. Why is loneliness the biggest epidemic among older adults, and we're talking about people making their own choices. But I think one of the biggest issues that is a lifestyle factor is loneliness and tell us why that is now at epidemic proportions.
Ryan: Well, so this matter of loneliness was a very big deal prior to the pandemic. There was a study several years ago by Cigna where they found the two like loneliest groups in the US were kind of old old people called 80 plus and then sadly college students and it spoke a little bit too just the dynamic that technology has had in our society, the fact that we're busy running around, I'm not sure what we're doing but running around and so it's impacted this social fabric and a lot of our societies and you're seeing a number of sociologists wright about this. There's a longer article actually, a lead article I recommend it was February 2020. So just before the pandemic started is literally a lead article in the Atlantic Monthly and the article was, Yeah, I read that exactly why the nuclear family was a mistake. And yes, these different dimensions here that have pulled us away. And there's some other research recently where there are now five times as fewer. There's five times as many people. Men for example don't have what they would consider a close friend outside of family and there's three times fewer men that have what they would say at least 10 close friends outside of family. So it's happened gradually, Cathleen, there's experts that can speak to that evolution. But we've reached a point where actually important dimension here and loneliness, loneliness is subjective around a lot of people and be lonely and you can be around no one and be lonely. This idea of social isolation, which is that's actually objective, how many people do you regularly interface with? But but loneliness is quite complicated, but the reality is that a lot of people do feel lonely and a few of us know our neighbors and the impact to our health. These statistics have been widely shared the last several years that people that are feel regular sense of loneliness and has the health equivalent of having 15 cigarettes a day, wow. And so what is happening is oftentimes there's no easy solution for loneliness. In fact, loneliness in some ways is actually a good thing because it's a trigger that says, okay, I'm feeling a certain way, that's not good, how can I change it? And so that is, I do hope that's one of the possibilities in our society. If we can be more aware of that loneliness trigger and that can actually prompt us to say, okay, well what are my other options, which is one of the reasons going about the dashboard, that social connection piece is valuable to work through.
Cathleen: And I think that this is going to be a very good way for people to do their own sense of measurement because we think a lot of talk a lot about health and weight and body and BMI, but I think we should start having more intentional conversations about how to connect with people and how to break down that social isolation before we this has been so exciting. But before we leave, I just one final question, we haven't touched a lot on the new trends in senior living and there's a lot going on. And you're at the center of much of that with SmartLiving 360, is there one trend that you'd like to mention or would like to share with our listeners as a something they may not be thinking about. That's an innovation that's coming down the road.
Ryan: Yeah, absolutely. So I'd say one of the things with the pandemic and you may have heard this in some ways, it's accelerated the future. And so what happened the pandemic, we got to see the reality of possibility of more goods and services coming to us, and that was in the form of meals, it was in the form of stuff, it was the form of telehealth. And so I think you're going to see now increasingly is you don't necessarily have to be go to a place for. And again, in the context of senior living, go to a place that has healthcare necessarily. I think we're gonna see more and more, you can be in a place that you want to be in and then have technology and services come to you to make that work. Now, we talked about aging in place before some cases, you might be socially isolated and lonely in a certain spot. So that's not right for other measures. But this idea that we historically had to move to where care was, I think you'll see more and more pressure on that model being settings that they prefer. And then with a combination of technology and service delivery and things like telehealth, be able to be in places you prefer longer than we have historically. So I think that's actually gonna create a lot of disruption and and how the healthcare piece of what senior living does today, how that changes. And I think it will also empower consumers to say wait a second. I don't necessarily have to make a commitment to certain things. If I know the service delivery model around me is going to be changing.
Cathleen: That's exciting. So the disaggregation of some of this and being more person centered being I want things delivered to me when I want them the way I want them. That's certainly good news for boomers because that's what they like is to have things done their way. So that's exciting. Ryan, this has been such a thoughtful conversation and very hopeful one too. And I know that a lot of our listeners are going to benefit from this and benefit from reading your book and taking the personal dashboard. So if you are listening, check our show notes for the link to SmartLiving 360 the dashboard and run right out and get Ryan Fredericks book, his new book Right Place, Right Time and start those conversations with your friends. Thank you so much for the time you spent with us today.
Ryan: Cathleen, my pleasure. Really enjoyed it.
Cathleen: So that's our show for today. If you enjoyed it, please tell your friends about us so we can reach more minds. Give us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts and send in your questions on aging. Until next time, enjoy the chance to get smarter about growing older. Thanks to our show sponsor the Riverwoods Group. Northern New England's largest family of nonprofit retirement communities where active adults find community purpose and peace of mind. Visit riverwoodsgroup.org. That's our show for today. Did it spark a question? If so, send us your questions at seniorityauthority.org and we’ll track down the answer. Meanwhile, don't forget to subscribe like us on Facebook, follow us on YouTube, and rate us on your favorite podcast platform. Until next time, let's get smarter about growing older.