Maintaining Optimum Control Over Aging: The “Openly Aging” Model

Welcome to the Living to 100 Club Podcast.

Here's our host, Dr. Joseph Casciani. Good day to everyone. I'm Joe Casciani, your host for the Living to 100 Club Podcast. Our conversations are all about aging well, and doing what it takes mentally and physically to live longer and healthier. Our guests share insights and recommendations about successful aging, stories of perseverance, and inspiration about our future. Today, we explore various tips on how to navigate the aging process post-retirement. We explore steps to take to be prepared financially, socially, and spiritually Now, our guest for this program is Allison O'Shea, the owner of her company Openly Aging. We discuss how to maintain maximum control over how we age by addressing several questions and putting plans in place to stay positive and in control. How can we avoid last-minute rushed decisions about managing major events? How do we communicate our wishes and plans to those in our family and support system? We'll be discussing these questions and others today. First, a little background. Alison O'Shea is a leader in the aging industry. She has over 18 years of direct hands-on experience working with seniors and their families in the role of executive director for various senior living companies. This experience has given her the knowledge to be a reputable voice in the confusing and overwhelming world of aging. In January of 2022, Allison opened Openly Aging LLC. Through Openly Aging, Allison helps families navigate all the options and resources available to them. One of the missions of Openly Aging is to bring education to the community, to be a change agent in how we talk about aging moving forward. Welcome to our program, Allison.

Thank you so much. I'm very happy to be here.

Great. Glad to have you with us. I always like to open my podcast by asking people to tell us a little bit about the journey that brought you to where you are today. Sure.

So I started in senior living, actually in activities. I got my degree in therapeutic recreation. And so I started, uh, of course, when I first graduated, I want to work with children. But as the world put me where I was supposed to be, I got my first role as the activity director in a memory care community. And then the rest was history. I realized that that was exactly where I needed to be. I grew to be an executive director rather quickly. And through that, I really witnessed so many situations, so many different types of aging, so many family dynamics, and all the resources that are out there. You know, they've come into our community to help. And so it really gave me a very broad view. Mm-hmm. As my career excelled and I got bigger and bigger buildings, I realized I was missing— I was dealing with the fires of a building and not helping and guiding, which is what I really fell in love with to begin with. So that's where Openly Aging came. It was kind of time after COVID to say, how can I really take my strengths and help families?

Sure. Yeah. So it gave you a broad, rich experience of overview of all the dynamics involved, and then I know the experience. You start putting out fires and takes you away from your mission and your, your goals, really. Sure. Yeah. Great experience working with these senior communities, but what lessons did you learn about older adults' decision-making and planning from this work?

Sure. So a lot of what I saw in senior living was crisis, you know, families coming in in crisis. That was probably one of the biggest things that hindsight looking back, I didn't necessarily realize. I thought that was kind of normal until, you know, really thinking about it. We don't have to live in crisis. But I also witnessed a lot of aging people really resistant to aging and resistant to the idea of what may happen. And it really made me start thinking, we really need to start thinking about these things. We can't pretend we're not going to age. You know, that's just a natural natural stage in the world. But the last thing I also learned was there is no blueprint. Everybody's aging journey is different. And I think that's why sometimes we lack planning, because we saw our grandmother live totally independent till she was 95 in her home, and life was fine for her. Well, she's one of the lucky ones. And so it allows for us to not, you know, put plans in place because we don't know what to put in place. And that can be kind of tricky.

Sure. So you mentioned crises in your work and your observation. Give us an example of one or two different crises that you, you saw.

So definitely mom was living on her own. Maybe she was already struggling, but we dealt with it. Well, we have a fall or some sort of crisis in the home that she needs to go to the hospital. She ends up in rehab. Rehab says she can't go home. It's not safe to be home. An adult daughter may not be local. Um, and so now adult daughter has to take a leave of absence or try to manage work while trying to manage moving mom into a community. Adult daughter has never researched communities, has no— mom hasn't researched communities. So you're also going into this emotionally driven crisis without any education about the industry. And so you're making decisions in a very overwhelmed state, which is never— a lot of times too, this is the first time the adult children find out what the financial situation is through this process. Oh, now we have to get power of attorney. I wasn't even on the power of attorney, you know, Dad was, and he's passed 5 years ago. So all of these things start getting— are at a head all at the same time. And there's poor Mom who really needs support And she's the one that suffers from all these rushed, overwhelming decisions.

Sure. Sure. Yeah. As you describe that, it's easy to kind of get that sense of stress and anxiety. The adult children may not know what the options are, and even if placement is needed, they don't know what types of placements and where, and what's the best arrangements, what's the best type of setting, and then funding and long-term care insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, whatever.

Oh yeah, the hospital uses lingo. Oh, they need 24-hour care. Well, what does that mean? You know, there's a lot of ways, as somebody who's been in the industry, that we can interpret that. They have to say that for their liability, but there's a lot of ways that that can be interpreted at home. Or, you know, so it is, it's knowing the lingo.

Yeah, so that's just one small, simple example of all the needs and the developments that come upon the older adult, whether he or she is single or married or living alone. A lot of questions that come into play. So, I'm looking forward to this conversation because I know you have a lot of recommendations to families to help start this planning process and anticipate and prepare. Rather than last-minute crisis mode. Sure. So how do you, how do you describe your role today? What are your— what is your current professional workload like?

So I consider myself an aging advisor. I started this business in January, and I definitely was being called into crisis management, and I still, of course, that's a big part of my business is to be called in during a crisis. But what I'm really working toward and have seen the most success is when I am able to meet people before the and we put what's called an aging plan in place because, say, finances are no issue, which is wonderful, and you want to— your goal ultimately is to move into what we call a continuing care retirement community. Well, there's 10-year wait lists for that. If you want to stay home as long as possible, which is also a wonderful option, is your master bedroom on the first floor? Do you need to do some home arrangements to make sure that that home is okay to do? So That's really where my mission is. But right now, as an Aging Advisor, while I'm doing that, I also do help families that do call me in a crisis, and I can help them put a step-by-step, unemotional plan in place to make sure that we're doing what's right for the person we're talking about.

Sure. Yeah. And you mentioned there are so many resources available, and it's hard to— I mean, for you to be in touch and an advisor, you know about these resources. Helping people to be more informed so they can make these informed decisions. Yeah, that's crucial. Sure. So let's just start with some of these questions. What do families need to begin looking at as we face our advancing years?

So one of the first things that I think is really important is identifying your support system. As we age, even if we age to 95, healthy as can be, we do need some sort of support system around us to help if we're not able to drive anymore, if, you know, we do small services coming in. So if I'm living in one state and my— I've identified my adult son as my support system and they live 3 states away, we have to really think about that. What is the plan? And if the plan is never to move toward the adult son, which is a fine decision, that's when I recommend to that person, well, you need to start learning and understanding what the idea of a care manager is. A care manager is somebody who can be that support system locally and keep The Extended Support System Updated. So that's just one resource that we really need to start thinking about sooner than later is, is just where is that support system and what is my plan in regards to that support system?

Yeah, that's great. So the care managers, are they called other things? Are they home care aides?

Geriatric care manager is pretty universal. There is a certification and these are people that really, they can go to doctor's appointments with you. If you go to the hospital, they will be called and they will go see and make sure they hear what the doctor says. They're basically an unrelated, uh, person, you know, who— they're just like an adult daughter, adult son would be. Um, they can help because they are specialized. They can help bring in services if home care is needed, home health. I mean, we could dive down the rabbit hole there, but it's just— it's the idea that if you don't have family close by, this, you have to identify somebody, you know, that can be of that support.

Yeah. So the surrogate adult daughter or adult son or spouse. Yeah. When they're not available. So geriatric care managers and they're certified, do all cities or else are they available? Yeah.

It's a national certification. They have national conferences. It's a, it's a big. And there's, it's actually a very growing industry because of the needs. You know, people are so spaced out. A lot of times, you know, adult children have moved away from home. So yeah, so it's, that is a service that people, you know, could learn more about.

Okay. So can you tell me or tell our audience, what are some of the qualifications of these care managers? Are they nurses? Are they gerontologists?

Care managers come to the field in a variety of ways. Some come from the professional side, some may come from the personal side. You know, they watched mom and dad and they realized that there was a need for some support for the family. And then they— there's classes and then you take a certifi— you know, a test and you become certified. Now, granted, when you're researching or vetting for a care manager, you know, that's a whole other topic of making sure that it is somebody who maybe has a little bit more experience than just their one experience with dad, you know, and that was kind of what drove them. But that's something too, an Aging Advisor as myself could also help with that vetting process, you know, really giving the family some things to follow when they're asking questions or just, you know, certain experiences that you should be looking for.

Sure, to give them some options, some choices, and then kind of prep them on what to ask.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

And then it's ultimately their decision.

Mm-hmm. Okay. Would you consider yourself a care manager or you're kind of at a different, different related level?

So I definitely take on some care manager tasks for some of my clients, but my role is more of a high-level role to really look at the full long-term picture, not the day-to-day management.

Sure.

And that's what a care manager really does is the day-to-day management of a client. So where I would put the aging plan in place, identify that a care manager may be needed, help the family vet, hire whatever care manager, then I may be out of the picture, you know, until the next assessment is due and we determine if this is, this, you know, is working. And I'll of course check in with the care manager to see what their impressions are, because then if we need to pulling home care, you know, that's a whole another step in the process.

Are you—

yeah, there's aspects of care management and people, you know, with what I— because I'm kind of, um, this is a new idea that I'm bringing to the table, and so people automatically want to clump me in care management, but there's just a little bit more that I do in regards to long-term planning.

Okay, so do you get involved with locating other specialists like attorneys or realtors?

Yeah.

Okay.

I view this process in a triangle. As we retire, we've reached out to our financial advisor to make sure our finances are good. Hopefully, we've reached out to some sort of legal advisor to make sure all of our documents are up to date, we have a power of attorney. Well, I also think you should finish that triangle out with an aging advisor. Somebody could help the financial advisor, you know, when they're planning all the money, they don't know what the industry is. They, you know, I can look at somebody and say, okay, what diagnoses do you have? What's your family history? What medicine are you on? Um, where do you want to live? Where's your support system? And all those things can really help a financial advisor with their financial long-term plan just by me having the experiences I have.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Sure. Yeah. Invaluable. I can see that. That's such an important position and role to play. So I wonder about paying for a geriatric care manager. I take it that's private pay. Insurance is not gonna cover that.

It is private pay. There are some long-term care insurances that have a care management line, not many, but there are some because I think what they're looking at and they're the smart ones probably because it's very preventative. They're, they're there to help so that the long-term care in the long run probably isn't paying out as much. But those are not as many plans, but some, some health insurances may cover it. I think it's worth diving into, uh, especially as that care management industry is growing and growing and growing. And we do see good results from having somebody in to help earlier, but most of the time it is private pay.

Yeah. Yeah. I don't believe that Medicare would cover that. I mean, there may be some Medicare Advantage plans.

I was thinking like private insurance.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But you're right. It is, it is preventive and it saves costs. It might be able to delay that placement or hospitalization or whatever down the road. Absolutely. Yeah. But health insurance companies don't always think in terms of prevention. Yeah. We know that. Yeah. So, um, that's, that's great. That's really the number one question. Like you say, what kind of support system is in place? And if it's, if it's weak or if it's minimal, then you would help to start to build those supports.

Yeah.

Yeah. Great. What, what's another question you, you ask?

So definitely the finances. Uh, that's obviously very, very important. And I always tell people there's no right answer. Of course, the more money you have, the more options you do have in regards to you know, where you could live, care you can bring in. But even if you don't have a lot of money, there are a lot of services in local communities to help support. But you've got to get on those lists. You've got to get in contact with those groups way before you even need it. If you wait until, you know, all of a sudden you can't drive and you need transportation or you need caregivers, there's a lot of free resources for caregivers. Those waitlists are 8 to 10 years long. So I always tell, you know, my clients, the newly retired clients, we need to look at all these, put our names on waitlists, because the worst thing you do is you get a phone call and you're not ready and you just say, okay, I'm not ready, but continue to let them call you. And that's the same thing with like the continuing care retirement communities. There's 10 to 15-year waitlist. 8 to 15 is the average right now waitlist period for, you know, those. So it's just really pre-planning the care we may need and getting on lists so we don't bypass what our, what our goals are because we're no longer eligible. No longer able to receive it. Yeah.

You mentioned the financial status and I'm always curious about, we know there are people that have the means to cover a lot of these services, but what about people that don't have the funds to cover this and maybe they're on Medicaid or They don't have a lot of savings or retirement assets. What's available for this group?

That is one of the weakest links we have in our country, is the fact that we do have many people like that that are not able to afford services and need them. There are community support services. You can reach out to the Department of Health and Human Services, I also tell people you need to start talking about getting Medicaid approved sooner than later, because if you are going to get Medicaid approved, that will open up housing opportunities for you. But there's— it's hard to get into those housing opportunities, you know, because there's many people wanting very few spots. Um, there's a lot of elder law attorneys who— that's part of their practice is to help with the Medicaid filing. To make sure and getting ahead of it. So, because unfortunately I've seen families that between pensions, Social Security, they made $30 too much to be eligible. So it's really talking to an elder care law attorney sooner than later if money is, of course, a big concern, because they will help be able to guide you to where, you know, the best resources are. The VA benefits, you know, making sure you're tapping into those, and those are based on income. So the options are fewer, there's no denying that, but there are ways to navigate it. It's just getting ahead of it. You cannot wait until a crisis.

Sure. Yeah. And we'll talk about that in a minute in terms of the preparation. Any other areas, any other questions that—

So, I have 3 more that are kind of my big, you know, top 5 questions to ask yourself. So, we talked about support system, where's that? The finances. Do you have any knowledge of what the options are? You know, not in a detailed, but, you know, overview. What is an independent living? What is a 55+ community? What is home health? What is home care? You know, If your goal is to stay home, you need to be researching, okay, how does that happen? Who provides care if I need it? So, a general basis of knowledge is really important just to kind of understand what's covered by insurance, what's not covered by insurance. Mm-hmm. And a lot of local communities in the senior living communities, they offer so many free seminars. You can get some really good food and you can go. Sure. And they always do ones on Medicare, you know, the levels of care. They do so many. So getting on any kind of list at the senior center and really looking at those seminars that they're putting on and really going to gain as much knowledge as you can is really important.

Yeah, that's great.

Yep. And then the fourth one would be making sure after we have all these is communicating, you know, with our support system, which we can talk about a little further. And then of course, listening to our support system. Sometimes we have a tendency to not hear what our identified support system is saying their boundaries are, you know, here's— I, I can do, I can do this, but the minute this happens, I can't, you know, maybe raising kids still, um, people are having children later, and busy careers. So we have to be able to listen as well.

Is that 5? Was that 4 and 5?

That was all my 5.

Communicating and listening. Okay, no, that's good. That's a good solid, that's a good solid foundation here. I can appreciate that. So identifying the support system, looking at the financial status, how much knowledge do we have about the options, the resources available in the community? What are the resources? Number 4, communicating our wishes, our desires, and number 5, listening to the people who may be there to help and what are their limitations. That's great. Yeah, yeah. So, uh, again, the big question is, and I know you've, you've seen this time and again, is that people put this off. We delay. We don't want to, you know, face these questions. I, I was giving a presentation just last week to a group of seniors, and someone asked me about the role of denial. And, um, you know, why is there so much denial? And I I said, in my 30-plus years of working with older adults in nursing homes, I've developed a very healthy respect for denial because sometimes that's the only way people can deal with these realities that might be very stressful or, you know, creating a lot of fear and anxiety. So we have to be careful about removing that denial too quickly and say, no, no, no, this is the reality. Well, we have to be careful about that. So now with that in mind, what do you, how do you wrestle with this fact that people delay these plans.

So, that's why I think it's really important to start thinking about post-retirement when we're thinking about retirement because if we put things in place in our retirement that can also be part of our post-retirement, downsizing a home, moving closer to our support system, the joy that will come out of those years of being able to enjoy because you've really planned ahead. Without really knowing what's ahead, you've really been conscious about, okay, when I do need help, I want to be close to this daughter. So let me get there. Let me establish a network. Let me get involved. Let me be okay with this new chapter in my life. Why are we so sad that one chapter is ending and then another? Why aren't we embracing it like we embrace retirement? If we think about post-retirement, we think about retirement, your real retirement could go on many years longer than your post-retirement probably would have started if you didn't have these plans in place, if that makes sense.

It makes a lot of sense. Sure.

Yeah. And that's the way I look at it, is every decision we make during our early retirement has to be with the idea of potentially situations arising in our post-retirement.

Sure.

And then we can live, we can embrace it, we can enjoy it, we can love it for what it is. You know, getting older isn't— I always said to my residents, isn't for sissies. It's not easy. And there is a depression in it, and there is, you know, sadness. It is scary, but we can't stop it, right? You know, there's no way to stop it. So why don't we embrace it and try to enjoy it?

Yeah. So the planning, the preparation brings that kind of freedom, as you're saying, that brings that peace of mind, even though it is connected with end-of-life issues down the road, because we always have to consider, you know, those final arrangements. The planning process can still be a time of embracing our senior years and post-retirement and making these tough decisions, wrestling with the tough decisions, like you said, gives us that peace of mind, gives us that freedom.

And it gives us peace of mind, but it also gives your adult children peace of mind. You know, how many times have I seen adult daughters, adult sons totally stressed out, guilty about the decisions they're having to make for their parents because they don't know what to do? When— if— what a gift we would give them if we could say, you know, one of the biggest things that always drove me crazy is when I heard an adult child say, well, my mom told me to promise she would never put me in a community. Well, how unfair is that? You know, you— there's no way to determine. And sometimes I'm a big believer in senior communities. Obviously, I did it for 18 years. Those can be some of somebody's best years sometimes, you know, due to maybe they never got out, you know, during retirement socially and they really thrive. So we can't put boundaries on our support system. That's unfair. But what we can do is provide them a blueprint of our ideal, our goals, our desires, so that they feel a peace of mind when they're making these decisions, that they have some sort of blueprint that you, as their adult, as their parent, have expressed. So it just makes the whole relationship stress-free, you know. It takes off that And it just allows everyone to enjoy themselves in that new, you know, grandparent, adult child, grandchild relationship because everybody is under an understanding.

Yeah. Yeah. I speak to that often when I give presentations to older adults in terms of, well, these years are time to celebrate because we have the wisdom, we have the experience. We have the insights, we have the tolerance, we have the sense of humor, we have a lot of the really important qualities that we need to keep moving forward, even though there are stresses and there are hurdles to get over. So I think you're making the exact same point that let's get these pieces in place and, you know, have more time to look ahead.

Yeah.

So I'm curious that you must have seen, you must still see adult children that are resistant to this process when the parents might be perfectly okay with it?

So it's interesting, I actually— because of course at first I was having a lot of adult children, that's who was reaching out to me. Professional adult daughters are— because they want the planning, they outsource things already, and so they— I was right up there, you know, their cup of tea. And so I did. And what I learned through that process, I was doing a lot of family meetings you know, all the children. We get on Zoom with the parents and have these open dialogues. And to be honest with you, I haven't come across anybody that's been resistant to the idea of thinking about it early, because it's the— it's their parents making their decision. The adult children actually have nothing to do with— other than saying, hey, I'm identifying you as my support system, and that adult child saying, okay, I'm raised, that's fine. But really, at the, the point I'm getting with people, it's they don't need any of the support yet. We're just identifying it and putting a plan in place for them to move forward. So most adult children actually are in— like my process because it will relieve them of so much stress.

Yeah. Okay. Oh, that's good to know. And I know when you and I spoke earlier, um, you made the important point that, um, when we don't have these decisions in place, and they're made for us, that is, you know, that's, that backfires, that creates more difficulty. So if I don't know where I want to move to, if I need to be placed and somebody else makes that decision for us, that's a big stressor, right? Yeah.

Well, to be honest with you, honestly with you, as I've been kind of researching and doing, I do blogs, I've been really trying to hone in on, you know, getting out into the digital world a lot of, you know, my knowledge or just, you know, communication about what options are out there. And through that, I found the idea of ageism, um, you know, that of course that's every— it was actually National Ageism Day last week, you know. Well, the more I thought about it and the more, you know, these things were kind of hitting me with why aren't we planning ahead, why aren't we playing it— we sometimes create ageism because we are allowing ourselves to get to a place where somebody has to— someone else has to make decisions for us. And why should we not have as much control over our decisions? Because we've pre-planned as long as we possibly can. Because the minute we give control to somebody else, we become weak, we become dependent, which is one of the big 3 D's why we don't talk about it, dependent, disability, death. And that makes us quote unquote weaker, which is ageism. We have, you know, which is the idea of ageism that a group of people in this certain age are not as strong as others. And so to me, it kind of combats that if we really take a proactive approach from the beginning, no one can say we didn't have control. Now, there's always going to be a time where that support system is going to have to come in and make those decisions. But we have given them a gift of a blueprint before that. So we're not weak, we're actually strong, and we have maintained control of our aging even when somebody else has to come in and help with those decisions because we've done that.

Mm-hmm.

That to me is keeping that control is a goal we should all have.

Yeah, that's such a great point, Allison. Thank you for highlighting that because You're right. I mean, the ageist stereotype negative view of older adults was dependency, helplessness. We have to let others make our decisions for us. So when we defer to others, even in these important days and years, we're fostering that same belief. We're fostering that we do need to be taken care of. We need to depend on others because we can't make our own decisions. So that's great. That's really important. I could see that. Sure. Yeah. So, um, how do you define successful aging? I mean, you know, my business is Living to 100 Club and I talk about living longer and longevity and, you know, I have certain ideas about what successful aging is. I'm curious to know what you're, what you're thinking. How would you define that?

You know, cuz I don't necessarily define it by longevity. Um, because we don't, you know, sometimes things happen even to the healthiest of people, as we all know. Um, mine is is truly self-awareness and embracing the moment. As you get older, you've retired, you've raised your children, you really can go do all the things you always wanted to do, and hopefully you've planned for them. It's a moment to just live and to, you know, be present and enjoy it for everything. Because as you said before, you have the wisdom You have the experiences, you have what you've created with whatever family that looks like for you. And it is a time to just enjoy because you don't know how long it is gonna be. And we don't know what health issues could arise to disrupt, you know, our plans or our goals. But so that's how I identify healthy aging is living in the moment and also just accepting it. It is what it is, but it doesn't have to be bad. It doesn't.

Yeah. Thanks for that. Making the right decisions, enjoying what we have. And I just like to add one little piece that means we get knocked down, but we get back up and we have a smile on our face every morning because we have things to look forward to. We have meaning and purpose and gratefulness comes to mind. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Great. Great. Well, I've really enjoyed this conversation. You're so knowledgeable about these important steps. I, I wonder what you would like, hope our listeners take away from this conversation today.

To definitely plan ahead. Um, I, you know, definitely I would love for people nationally to reach out to me. I do my aging advisory, is not just local. I do help families locally, but I can really help families, um, nationally to help start making that plan. Um, I would love for more retiring people to reach out to me and not waiting for their children. Um, and just to have conversations. Uh, I'd love to go to my website, openlyaging.com, put a submission in there and we can start conversations. I'm also, um, active on my Facebook, Openly Aging, Instagram, and LinkedIn. If anyone would like, LinkedIn is under my name, Allison O'Shea. I have started to do weekly tips of the week. Like, this week's tip of the week is, um, it's never too early to intentionally start decluttering. And I have a blog coming out today that kind of explains why that's important and what it can do for your early retirement and moving forward. It kind of is a catalyst to the rest.

So great, great. Yeah, great. I love that tip too. It's never too early to start. Decluttering. We spend the first half of our lives acquiring and we spend the second half, uh, on it.

Well, the big point too that I'm making during this week is your children don't want it.

Yeah, they don't want it.

Whereas, you know, my— I'm 40, my generation, I don't want— and I tell a tidbit in my blog about my dad was appalled when no one wanted his mom's pride and joy, her cherry dining room set.

Yeah.

So what he did, he started making it into shelves. He realized— so it's just a new generation of, um, adult children who aren't hanging on to stuff. So how do we deal with that? Because that's going to be a challenging thing.

Sure. Good point.

Yeah.

The adult children don't want the china necessarily.

We think they do, right?

Yeah. The collectibles, all the artifacts. Yeah.

From great grandma and— Yeah.

The limousine.

Yeah.

Good. Good. So your website is openlyaging.com and people can reach you, get in touch with you that way.

Yep. And my email is Allison, A-L-L-I-S-O-N, alison.oshea@openlyaging.com.

Great.

Okay.

Well, it looks like we're out of time for today, Allison, but before we wrap up, I just wanna remind our listeners to visit my website, livingto100.club, sign up for my email list and download a free copy of my 9 tips to make living longer enjoyable. While you're there on the website, be sure to peruse our library of blogs and past podcasts. So Allison, thanks so much for being a guest on our show today. I thoroughly enjoyed this conversation. And again, your website is openlyaging.com. Your email address is allison.oshea@openlyaging.com.

That's it. I was so happy to be here. Thank you so much.

Great. You're so welcome. And thanks to everyone for tuning in today, and hope to see you next time. It's time to rethink, renew, and reimagine retirement. Hey everybody, Jared Sylvester here, host of Retire Repurposed. Now this This podcast is about the non-financial parts of retirement, which many times can be even more challenging than the financial. We believe retirement is not the end, rather the beginning of what could be the most impactful, purposeful, and fulfilling season of a person's life. So don't retire, become repurposed. To listen now, search Retire Repurpose on your favorite podcast platform, Senior Resource, or Life Audio.