July 13, 2025 • 50 mins
In this episode of ‘The Aging Well Podcast’, host Dr. Jeff Armstrong is joined by Shauna Sweeney, founder of tendercare, a platform designed to support family caregivers with modern tools and AI technology. Central to the discussion is the emotional journey of facing early onset Alzheimer's in a family member. Shauna shares her personal experience as a caregiver and the lessons learned along the way, leading to the creation of tendercare. In this conversation, Shauna discusses the challenges and opportunities in caregiving, emphasizing the importance of community support, mental health, and the need for better resources for caregivers. She shares personal experiences and insights from her journey with tendercare. The discussion highlights the emotional toll of caregiving, the necessity of asking for help, and the systemic gaps in support for family caregivers. Shauna also reflects on the lessons learned from her experiences and the importance of proactive planning for… aging well.
Connect with Shauna Sweeney and learn more about tendercare: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shaunas/https://trytendercare.com/about-us/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:03):
Welcome to the Aging Well podcast where we explore the
strategies, innovations, and real life stories that help us
live longer, healthier, and moremeaningful lives.
I am your host Doctor Jeff Armstrong.
My guest is someone who embodiesresilience and innovation in the
face of life's greatest challenges.
Caregiving. Shauna Sweeney is a former Meta
executive who transformed her personal journey caring for her
(00:25):
father, diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's, into a
groundbreaking solution for millions.
As the founder of Tendercare andAI powered Platform, Shawna is
helping to ease the emotional and logistical burden on the
54,000,000 Americans providing unpaid care to loved ones, a
role that's valued at nearly $873 billion annually but comes
(00:46):
at an enormous personal cost. Her work has been featured in
Time, Business Insider, and The Huffington Post, and her
powerful story was captured in the short documentary Sweeny's
Rock. Today, we'll explore the
intersection of technology and caregiving, hear about Shawna's
own strategies for maintaining her health and well-being, and
discuss what strategies are needed to better support
(01:08):
caregivers everywhere and age well.
So, Shawna, welcome to the AgingWell podcast.
It is such an honor to have you with us for this episode.
Can you take us back to the moment your father was diagnosed
with early onset Alzheimer's? And how did that experience
shape your path personally and professionally?
Such a good question, Jeff. Man, that's a hard one for me to
(01:29):
go back to. Yeah, I dive into the hard ones
first. Yeah, I'm like, oh, you're
really getting me right right into the the offset here.
Umm, I was in New York at the time.
I was working at Facebook. I was in a meeting.
We knew something was going on. My dad was a ship captain over
in San Francisco. He's a bar pilot.
And so, you know, I had actuallybeen the one to urge him to tell
(01:52):
his doctor that there might be something going on.
His stories were getting a little longer winded.
He's having a harder time managing through some of the
things that were no problem frombefore.
So that was a long conversation.He went in to the neurologist
and my mom was with him at the time.
And then I remember getting all of these calls ringing up on my
(02:14):
phone and I couldn't pick up because I was in the middle of a
meeting at work. But I knew like something.
What had happened was that my dad had been diagnosed with
early onset Alzheimer's. I really didn't know much about
what Alzheimer's was at the time, but what my mom told me is
my dad had taken off from the doctor's office.
We didn't know where he was. It had been a couple hours and
(02:34):
it was just really scary. It was really scary for a few
different reasons. I didn't know anything about
this illness. I also just didn't know where my
dad was. So clearly this was really bad
and I felt pretty powerless because I was across the country
at this point. So even if I wanted to help go
look for him, they couldn't. Luckily for us, he turned up
about 14 hours later, but that was like with their whole family
(02:55):
and friends searching for him atthe time.
And that was really my hard start introduction into what it
means to a family living with a member of your family with
Alzheimer's. I was remote 3500 miles away,
and I was sort of numb to the entire experience at that point.
You know, you're walking througha little bit of a daze or a
(03:17):
fugue state, if you will. I've heard so many other family
caregivers talk about this because you don't know, you
know, you're kind of an emergency, but you don't really
know what kind of emergency you're in.
So it feels like very strange where you know you're in a high
stakes moment in time, but you have no idea what bad thing is
(03:37):
coming for you and from which direction.
So that was really my entry point.
It's been 13 years now. My dad is now my dad Mike.
We're very, very close. He's still living at home in the
house I grew up in back in San Francisco.
I have been his primary caregiver for the past thirteen
years. I'm super proud of that.
And, and we figured out a prettygood system.
(03:59):
My dad is just a fantastic partner in all this.
He's so brave. And we're, you know, knock on
wood, hopefully going for 13 more years of this.
So we have a lot to say and to share about what this experience
is like for so many other families.
Yeah. And I want to dive a lot deeper
into that story. It's fascinating.
I mean, he had, I mean, there was like really almost no sign
(04:22):
that he had dementia and just had that quickly, had an instant
where he was lost for 14 hours. Yeah, yeah.
Well, this is emotional. It's emotional too.
So I think some of this was like, you know, processing.
What does this mean now for you when you're sitting in that
pilot seat and you've been giventhat news, what does that look
like? How do you want to spend your
(04:43):
time? Yeah, it's AI.
Have tremendous empathy for anyone who is on the receiving
end of that. And I want, again, we're going
to dive a little deeper into thestory, But first, what does it
mean for you to age well, you know?
I have always looked at aging a little differently than I think
what mainstream ideas around age, which is, you know, I think
(05:03):
delay as long as possible and really hold on to youth for as
long as you possibly can. My first babysitter was my great
grandma. Her name is Grace.
She lived to be 102. And so my first best friend, I
like to say, was already in her early 90s by the time I, I came
into the picture. And she was just a phenomenal,
(05:25):
an old woman. I really didn't see her age at
all. Obviously physically we looked a
lot different. I was only 6-7 years old.
And she's, I really just understood her as this
incredible human being who I just happened to be lucky enough
to have in my family. And so when I think about aging
well, I always think about Gracebecause she lived her life so
(05:47):
beautifully principled based offof spending time with family,
having her independence. And I think a lot about that in
how I think about my own aging. I think that this is a chapter
of life just in the same way that when we're a teenager,
we're in our college years and it's something to be embraced
and to be met with enthusiasm and not to have any shame around
(06:11):
it or to be thinking about how you delay this.
We can't, you know, this is not an optional, but I think there's
a lot of ways to go about it with dignity and with
independence and real confidencein aging that I would love to
be. You know, I would love to have
more people perceive this chapter of everybody's life
(06:32):
through this lens because there's so much to be gained.
I think when you look at it through a positive, positive
mindset. And I think that's what we're
trying to accomplish here on this podcast.
Hopefully we're doing a better job of it.
You're. Doing great well.
Thanks. So what are some of the biggest
challenges you faced early on asa caregiver?
I mean, for one, you were acrossthe country, but how do you
navigate these challenges? First, I think I didn't have
(06:55):
words for it. Language, you know, caregiver.
It's kind of a muddy definition,you know, in our society.
Does that mean this is your job?Does this mean you're a parent?
I really didn't know what it meant to be leaning in to take
care of my dad. I was starting to join every
doctor's appointment. I was flying back every couple
of weeks to check in on him. I was reading up until like 3-4
(07:16):
in the morning on Alzheimer's and what to expect and some of
the stages that we were going tobe going through.
But I really didn't know much about this.
You don't go to school for family caregiving, especially
when you're taking care of someone with a chronic illness.
So it was a lot of education that was very informal in the
very beginning. I went in under the expectation
(07:38):
that meant, like many of us, when you get sick, the the thing
that you need to do is just get a great doctor.
And then once you've got a greatdoctor, they're going to give
you some medicine and then you're going to be good and
you're right back out on the field.
What I quickly realized with Alzheimer's is that is not how
it works. You are in a neurologist
appointment once every six months, sometimes for about 15
(07:58):
minutes, and then you are back out again.
And the biggest question at thatpoint was what am I going to do
with my dad and how am I going to be the best daughter I can
and show up for him for those five months, five months and
three weeks, you know, outside of the doctors office.
And so I had to apply a lot of the same lessons I've learned,
(08:18):
you know, growing up building teams in big tech.
How do I think about my team, mystaff?
What are the roles and responsibilities that are going
to be necessary across my whole family in order to make sure my
dad is safe? Very hard to do when you're
living in a different state. You know, you're dealing with
different time zones. You're not there, so you can't
see if something new is happening.
(08:39):
So I was living a lot with that guilt.
Like, man, what happens? You know, there's like something
new that develops and I'm not around to see it.
Do we have enough checks and balances in place to step in to
make sure that my dad is safe? How do we make sure that he's
feeling good about this whole experience?
It's a very rocky, emotional road to go down.
My dad is super independent, so things like taking away the
(09:02):
driver's license was a big devastatement for my family.
And then it brings all kinds of new challenges, which is like,
OK, great. If my dad can't drive, who's
picking up the groceries? Like how is he getting to his
doctor's appointments? How does he have any sense of
independence? You know, so we, we got him a
bike. Like you start to do all these
sort of like mini problem solving solutions to try and
(09:25):
stopgap a lot of the ripple effect of what happens when
you're caregiving from afar and when you're, you know, really on
this journey together. I think if I had it to do over
again, you know, something I hear thousands of different
caregivers who are now on our platform at Tendercare say is I
just wish I could have been a little easier on.
(09:46):
Because at that point, you really think it's just your
family. You don't realize you were
actually in this experience withmillions of other people.
You think this is just the bad thing that's happened to you.
And when bad things start happening, you don't realize,
hey, this is actually expected. This is part of this process.
You think it's because you've made a bunch of mistakes and
that you just weren't a good enough kid.
(10:08):
You weren't smart enough, you didn't research enough, you
didn't put enough checks and balances in place when really
you're there's no a in this. There's no, if you do these four
things, everything's going to beperfect and just the way it was
before. You're actually on a progressive
journey and you know what you'regoing for here when you're
caregiving is the best possible outcome.
(10:29):
That's going to be realistic across your family, across your
loved one. That's a very different mindset
than the way most of us live therest of our life.
And so that leads us to Tender Care.
Tell us about Tender Care. What inspired you to create it
and how does the use of AI support family caregivers?
So Tendercare is the single one stop shop for a family who is
(10:52):
embarking on a journey of moderncaregiving.
It is a set of tools to get educated on what it means based
off of conditions and family dynamics to be a caregiver, to
be leaning in as a family unit and taking care of someone.
A set of tools to get organized,store all of the important
information you are going to need as a caregiver and as a
(11:15):
family along the way. Things like health insurance
information, social Social Security, where does your loved
one bank? What documents are legal, You
know, paperwork has already beenfilled out, what insurance
policies do you have? These are a lot of different
disparate pieces of information that actually all come together
to help a family make very smartdecisions.
(11:36):
And then it's a number of different assessments and
guides. There's different parts of
caregiving all along the way. You know, I mentioned a few.
Well, you know, when is it time to take away the keys?
When is it time to think about moving?
Because, you know, mom or dad's home is no longer the best
possible place for them to stay safe.
There's too many, there's too many stairs or it's really hard
(11:58):
to get in and out of the shower.What are some of those checks
and balances and assessments youcan take to know the right
moment in time to really come together and have some of these
discussions? And then how do you just stay on
top of the flow of this? So much of this is the daily
parts of making sure you're not missing a dentist appointment,
making sure that you're showing up and you've got, you know, all
(12:18):
the coordinated travel for, you know, an upcoming doctor's
visit. And then on the other side of
the spectrum, every once in a while there's an emergency, you
know, something happens, there'sa slip and fall.
There's a reason to get to the ER really quickly.
How do you make sure that everybody is prepared?
We've got the right information.So, you know, doctor can move
really quickly and give the bestcare.
(12:39):
All of this is on tender care. It's really the set of tools I
wish I had had when I first started.
This is really trial by error, you know, be like, wow, this
would have been helpful at that point in time.
And so how do we make sure that this is a little bit easier for
everyone else? We're also in this moment in
time, which is so exciting, which is, you know, we are,
(13:00):
we're in the midst of an AI renaissance where we are looking
at being able to use technology to solve very complex, very
personal, unique problems with incredible precision.
We couldn't do this before. And so it's so exciting to be
able to bring AI to this particular experience, like very
(13:21):
simple, pragmatic, like tools. We're integrated with Medicare,
for instance. And so to be able to, in a few
clicks, ingest all of your health data, your medications,
your past visits, your primary care physicians that's just
specific to you or your loved one.
And then immediately start applying all the checks and
(13:42):
balances against databases of like contraindications for
medications, like really great strong care, gerontologist
approved care tips on top of what is very unique and specific
to your loved one. These are some of the ways AI
can be sprinkled throughout thisexperience and this information
(14:04):
that just makes the tools that we're building today so much
more powerful than they could have been, you know, just a
couple years ago. Yeah, we started this podcast,
but this is we're in our fourth season my Co host night Corbin.
We, we're kind of initially looking at, you know, we, the
world really needs some kind of almost like an Angie's List for
aging and, you know, started kind of exploring those ideas we
(14:26):
had, you know, and, and programslike Tendercare have thankfully
kind of stepped in there becausewe, we were like, I don't have
the technological background to be able to figure this all out.
And, and just the explosion of technology and information has
just occurred in that period of time.
It's just amazing. And you're, you're, you're
speaking my language. Jeff list for caregiving is
(14:49):
exactly what's needed. You know, so many of us were,
you know, we're families that were spread out from each other.
We're living in different places.
Word of mouth is harder for us. And so how do you really quickly
find the best trusted services in a specific area that you can
feel comfortable putting into your own home, your mom's home,
(15:09):
your dad's home. You need that right, really
quickly. And so one of the things that
has been most exciting for us isa trusted services marketplace
that we have rolled out, startedon the East Coast, rolling out
across the country of like vetting all of the different
services, senior move managers, elder law attorneys, right care
(15:31):
concierge is how do you make sure you know what the best are?
What are the criteria for looking for the best?
You know, those like local heroes who are doing incredible
above and beyond service. And then how do you very quickly
surface that to, you know, a group of people that may not
even know the name of that service?
You know, senior move manager? That's something that I learned
(15:53):
along this journey. So how do you make those
connection points for a family to feel really good about the
choices they're making? It's one of the things where
we've seen quite frankly the biggest a demand and also the
biggest opportunity on our platform it would seem.
Like, so many families don't know what they don't know.
You know, we didn't have no ideathat they need a certain
(16:14):
service. Yeah.
Exactly. You know what the problem is?
It's kind of like, I like to think about it almost like
calling 911. It's very clear something is not
going well and you need to bringin some outside help.
But it's not really on the family, I don't think, nor
should it be to know the exact name of all of these different
services. I think it's just important to
(16:34):
focus on giving great care to your loved 1 and flagging that
you need help when you need it. That's really where we've built
tender care to step in and immediately do a very quick
assessment. Kind of like that emergency call
to then immediately suggest, hey, here is what we think is
really going to help you right now.
It sounds like you need home care.
Here's the difference between home care and home health.
(16:56):
Here's what you want to look forin a really great home care
provider. Why don't we go ahead and
connect you to three or four that match a lot of what you're
saying is going to be the most useful for your family, so can
you? Share a real world example of
how tender care has helped ease the burden for a caregiver.
We just. You know, we're getting these
stories all the time. It's like my favorite part of
(17:17):
the day. We get feedback.
We've got thousands of families who are on our platform.
We just got one actually from one of our, our, you know,
amazing family caregivers who are on the platform.
She has actually started using tender care not just for her
parents but also for her kids. She's got college age kids.
(17:38):
Most family caregivers are usually kind of what do you call
sandwich? They're in the middle.
They're usually caring for many people.
There was a car accident that her daughter was in and she
dropped everything. She was on the way to the ER to
make sure that her daughter was OK.
Realized very quickly they didn't have any of the paperwork
that they would need in order tobe able to go in and give the
(18:00):
doctor all the background information on her.
But they were about to turn around, it was about 30 minutes
away, their house, and go back and get all the paperwork
because that's what normally you'd need.
You need all the medications, everything.
And then she has gone that she actually had all of this on
tender care. She had built a profile for her
daughter, realized she had all of the paperwork copies, all the
(18:23):
summaries, the health and insurance cards, realized she
had that and they just kept going to the ER Luckily
everything turned out her daughter was fine.
But that's just like that happened yesterday.
So a really great example real world of where you know when
we're doing our job over on our side, we are there at the moment
when you really need us and it makes a big difference in that
(18:46):
moment. You'll know it when it comes.
And so we're really proud of serving that role.
You've. Initiated this company to best
serve seniors and you know agingadults is is they need care and
so families can caring for the older adults.
Are you beginning to kind of seethe an opportunity to kind of
extend that to the younger as well?
(19:06):
Is this something that's going to be growing or is it something
you're already working on you? Know it's a great question.
We, we listen to our families who are on the platform and
we've watched, you know, we started with just the single
simple use case of taking care of mom or dad.
And then there's been this overwhelming sort of response
back of, oh, this can also be used to help me take care of
(19:29):
myself in the case of something going wrong in the case of my
kids. So we've made many of our tools
multifunctional for those purposes.
As we're following what our families are asking for.
One of the most interesting parts that we've seen has been
as caregivers go through the journey of helping take care of
(19:49):
their parents, it immediately starts lighting up this idea
that they want to put everythinginto one place and get
everything settled for their ownkids.
So Self has actually come up at a really important piece for us
to consider how we build out andexpand.
How do you actually, now that you become a little bit of a
(20:10):
graduate in caregiving and this.Chapter apply those same lessons
to how you think about giving a gift to your own children,
getting a lot of this set up ahead of time.
So we're seeing both of those use cases.
We still focus primarily on helping take care of mom or dad.
We think like we can do the mosthelp by bringing sort of a set
(20:31):
of services and tools to the millions of people who are just
starting that journey. But we find very quickly, as
many of our families go through a lot of these different
workflows and get organized, they want to stay on the
platform and they want to start using it for thinking much
longer down the road and being much more proactive.
Yeah, I see. This exploding in very short
(20:53):
period of time, I would think just with AI and just with
technology and just with the need that is out there in our
community, this could just be such a useful tool for so many
people. It's it's an.
Honor to build technology like this.
I, you know, I've been enamored with technology for a very long
time For it's for, I think it's strengths, which is that if you
(21:14):
build the right tools for these very critical moments in time,
you can now improve the experience for millions, if not
billions of people, right? The, the influence that you can
have on just making some of these experiences more positive
just hit so much scale. It's really exciting to think
(21:36):
about, you know, not just improving what this is like for
your own family or for your own community, but for so many
people who have not even startedthis work yet, what what this is
going to look like as they startto confront a lot of these same
situations and conversations down the road.
So yeah, we're, we're really excited to be there and to be of
help and to be of service and tomake this a little bit easier
(21:59):
caregiving. Can really take a serious toll
on us physically, emotionally what are some personal
strategies that have helped you maintain your own well-being
while caring for your dad you know if.
I'm totally honest. This was really rough in the
first couple of years. I was in a really dark place.
I, you know, I've mentioned this.
I felt like a lot of this was myfault.
(22:19):
I was so mad at myself for not doing a better job.
You know, there's a couple of instances where I missed some
mail that was my my dad's healthinsurance renewal.
I was because I was in New York,California.
I was so mad at myself for jeopardizing his health
insurance. And, you know, why didn't I set
up a system ahead of that? I was so mad at myself when I
didn't realize he had been taking thousands of dollars out
(22:42):
of the ATM every day and then losing it.
And why hadn't I thought of a system ahead of that, you know,
to make sure that he wasn't losing as much.
So I was not in a good spot, just trying to stay afloat at
work, praying I wasn't going to get fired because I was having
to step in and out of meetings when the doctor would call
because you didn't know the nexttime you were going to get a
(23:03):
chance to talk to the doctor. So it felt super disruptive.
It took me a while to get to a really strong and resilient
place. So I can't tell you that there
was just this magic switch and everything was great for me.
You know, I'm 13 years in, so I'm lucky enough, like I had
enough time to kind of figure some of this stuff out.
I do think, you know, mental health is huge.
(23:25):
We lose ourselves as caregivers and the identity of those we're
caring for. We're taking care of mom, we're
taking care of dad. You forget to book your own
dentist appointment, that's the last thing on the list that
you're going to hit. And that adds up over time.
When we talk to, you know, thosewho've been at this for some
time, their their biggest adviceis be kinder to yourself.
(23:45):
In the beginning. It's we never listen.
You know, it's the psychology ofthose in the family.
Everybody's got one who's the first one to show up when
something's wrong, We don't listen.
But you know, now I really feel like it's part of my duty to
really go ahead and carry that message through.
Anyone who's going through this,it's OK.
Like take the moment for yourself.
(24:06):
It's, you know, in the long run going to be so much more
important that you stay in a really good spot.
This is an ultra marathon you are on.
You're not going to be able to get through that To Do List and
have everything perfect on the other side.
Very important to make sure thatyou're making time for yourself
in all of this so you don't burnout.
That was going to be. My next question how do you
(24:27):
balance the demands of being an entrepreneur and a caregiver
without burning out? Do you have any other secret
strategies, the things that you do just to kind of, you know,
that self-care time that we needwhen when we're under a heavy
burden of having to care for others?
I mean, Jeff. It's crazy I've got 4 kids.
I literally I 5 minutes before this podcast I had my 4 year old
(24:48):
unfortunately not feeling well. She's throwing up trying to
figure out on one hand, getting like a pediatrician appointment
today, figuring out last minute care for her while trying to
show up for work on time. It's not easy what happens
outside of the screen. I think a lot of us are are
feeling that way. So I actually think it's more
about just being permission, youknow, giving ourselves
(25:10):
permission to talk about it. You know, there is no perfect
outcome or world in which you'regoing to set up a system in
which you are going to have, youknow, 36 hours in a 24 hour day.
It's not possible. And the reality is we're being
pulled in a million different directions.
I think having a little humor about it and grace and
forgiveness for ourselves is really the most important part.
(25:30):
And then the rest of this, you know, is solvable.
You figure it out along the way.But we're all in it together.
We're all experiencing this, thecrunch of modern life.
You know, it requires all of us to be superhuman, which is just
impossible. And so, so I think it's just
being realistic about it and, you know, taking your wins where
you can get them and just understanding, you know, you can
(25:52):
fight another day and whatever you didn't get to today or
whatever wasn't perfect. It's going to be OK.
And it seems. Like there needs to be a certain
sense of vulnerability there that, you know, you said we're
all in it together and we are. And I think a lot of people in
that position of having to care for, you know, their parents
and, and their kids at the same time, they want to be
(26:12):
superhuman. And they, they don't realize
that they don't have to do it alone.
And that if they just let peopleknow that they have need help,
that that could be a huge benefit to them.
Yeah. Asking for.
Help is a skill, right? Being able to really put that
out to your family and your community.
It's not something we all feel comfortable with.
We're scared. We think that we're going to
come off as needy or demanding or people are going to be
(26:34):
annoyed, you know, or it's not. Don't even bother.
People are too busy. You don't want to, you know,
disrupt them. It's really important to refine
in that muscle. Like really just try,
experiment, ask for help with a couple things.
You'll be so surprised how many of your community, your network,
your boss, your workplace wants to help.
If you can really articulate it,it's the most incredible,
(26:56):
liberating thing to realize. You're not alone in this.
It takes a while for everyone tocome to that point where they
realize, but once you do, it becomes survivable.
So what advice? Do you have for someone who's
just starting their caregiving journey and already feeling
overwhelmed? I mean it's.
It's overwhelming right at the very beginning.
It's so overwhelming. First, I think that you're not
(27:20):
the first to go through this. This is part of the human
experience. And so there is so much advice
and wisdom that's out there on the Internet, in books.
You come to Tendercare. There's a whole community on
Tendercare of those you can talkto who've been through this
before. So really just getting your
grounding and knowing this is something that many others have
(27:41):
experienced and you're going to be OK and you're going to slowly
learn what you need to ahead of time.
I'm also a big proponent of therapy.
I think whether you know, whatever sort of like
therapeutics you need, whether talking to somebody else,
getting out in nature, having a 10 minute walk, really just
getting your foundation strong as you go through what is
ultimately like a pretty destabilizing or initial
(28:03):
process. Very important to build that
time in for yourself. And then just remember that
there's all kinds of companies like mine, like Tendercare who
are out there trying to activelybuild tools to make this easier
for you. So come in, check us out, see if
what we are able to offer reallyhelps get you grounded and give
(28:24):
you what you need to have a solid foundation for what will
hopefully be and actually like very positive and life changing
experience. You know, I say this and it's so
counterintuitive, but Alzheimer's has been an
incredible teacher for me. It has brought out the best in
me as a human being and how to be more empathetic for my
(28:46):
family, how to show up and know how strong I am to be able to do
some of the work I've done for my family.
If you can really see what giftsare coming to you through this,
and it's not going to be easy. There's going to be some really
hard parts of this. It's going to pull out of you A
part of yourself that you didn'teven realize was possible, which
(29:08):
is an incredibly inspiring thingto be able to sit on the other
side of and say, hey, when, you know, it came time I showed up
for my family and I repaid the favor to them for all the
kindnesses they've given to me. You know, when things got hard,
I was able to dig deep and find the strength in myself to do
this. All of that is in front of
(29:29):
someone who is thinking about taking on the role of caregiver
for their family. And it is an incredible
perspective to have moving through the world on the other
side of it. So get smart, get connected, get
your local support, get the tools you need, and then just
know at some point you're going to be able to look back on this
(29:51):
and see the gifts in all of it. I think that's an.
Important attitude and that's where we kind of talk on this
podcast a lot about gratitude with two TS and the attitude of
gratitude. It helps us to just recognize
that the stuff we're going through and other people are
going through it. For one thing, if we just kind
of look to the end of the tunnel, there's always some some
(30:12):
good that comes out of it. And it's it's very easy to sit
there and say why me this is horrible and you know, go down
all kind of different rabbit holes with that.
But you know, if we just engage with it and let it grow us, I
think it's such a beautiful thing.
I so well said. It's so well said and this whole
experience, you know, realizing even just, you know, knowing how
(30:35):
to ask for help, knowing that you don't need to be strong all
the time, knowing that your family's really there for you
and ready to step up, really working through some of the
harder parts of relationships. These are all the invitations
that this process allows for. If you can see it for that.
And so you know there is gold inthose hills, and so in your.
(30:55):
View What are some of the biggest systemic gaps that we
see in our healthcare system in regards to support for family
caregivers? You know, it's interesting, we
still treat a lot of what bringssomeone into being a family
caregiver as this very like health medical oriented
experience. You know, you start to refer to
(31:15):
a family member as a patient as opposed to mom or at mom or dad.
And I think there is a real flawin that line of thinking
because, you know, so much of family caregiving is just about
regular life. It's about groceries.
It's about how do you make sure mom or dad has, you know, social
(31:37):
activities in their life. It's not about going to the
hospital. It's not about the doctor.
And so I think right there, there is a misalignment to what
the actual experience is like for a family.
It's not all connected to illness.
And to the second piece is that oftentimes family caregivers are
(31:59):
so busy doing the care, they're not great advocates for
themselves. So they don't talk about what
they need. They don't vote as a bloc there.
It's very hard to really put your finger on the pulse of what
this community, which is ultimately 54,000,000 families
are really spending their time on because they're so busy
trying to get it all done. And so I think there's
(32:21):
oftentimes sort of a not intentional, but an ignorance of
this, the huge body of Labor that is happening, right, you
know, underneath our noses. Right now you're looking at at
least 24 hours on average insideof a family that's being spent
on any number of caregiving tasks, picking up groceries,
(32:43):
driving to the doctor, getting on the phone, filling out forms
to try and get reimbursed or to get, you know, sort of access to
different local community resources.
So a lot of work and effort thatgoes into a lot of this.
And so I think just the first step is making sure that it's
seen, then you can actually start to create solutions around
(33:05):
it. But first we got to acknowledge
that this is actually happening across our country and it's
going to be happening to a lot more of us.
As you know, one in five Americans hit 65.
That's scary. I.
Think haven't looked up the data.
I heard it recently how many, how we've kind of hit a
threshold of the percentage of people that are over the age of
65 now is like greater than I think number of people that are
(33:25):
under the age of 18 that's. Right, That's right.
So there is a huge opportunity in that as well to really think
about this chapter of aging and you know what a 65 and up look
like, not just for, you know, the person who's entering into
this, but also the whole family that's going to be experiencing
this right alongside them. So we've got a lot of work to do
(33:47):
in this space, but I'm, I'm really energized by a lot of the
conversations like the ones herethat I'm seeing happening around
this. And we just got to, I think
we've got to keep going and really normalizing a lot of this
in order for, you know, a lot ofour different larger and, you
know, industries like the medical, you know, just
healthcare in general, the financial industry to really
(34:08):
acknowledge and recognize this. And you know, on the other, the
heels of that acknowledgement, Ithink comes a lot of empathy and
a lot of new tools to just make this experience a lot easier.
So if you can, just. Wait, wave a magic wand and
change one thing about caregiversupport in the US?
What would that be? So many.
Things Jeff. Gosh, okay, if I got 1 golden
(34:30):
ticket to change one thing, I think I'm gonna do something
really small because sometimes Ifind that starting with
something small leads to something big.
So one of the hardest parts of being a family caregiver, I
would say is when you're in emergency mode.
This is many of us have experienced this.
When you end up in the ER, you're with your loved one.
(34:52):
This is just a brutal experience.
You don't know how long you're in the waiting room for.
You are advocating usually fiercely for your loved one.
It's scary. It's really, it's really rough.
One of the things that I think could immediately just make this
experience easier is that in many hospitals where you have a
(35:15):
patient who's admitted into the ER, only that patient is given
food. And so, so I can't tell you how
many times I've been in the ER with my dad in which I've gone
like 8 hours without eating because of the hospital policy
around this. Now there is no world in which
my dad cannot have a caregiver with him going into an
(35:36):
experience like this. And it's amazing how much better
a caregiver feels if you have lunch.
And so I know that's so small, but it's I think actually a
little kind of keyhole into the bigger problem, which is that,
you know, we're there, we're we're omnipresent as family
caregivers and yet we're not always considered in that
(35:58):
equation. And so just the basics, you
know, a meal would go a really long way if that became part of,
you know, broader US hospital policy in ERS and patient
admittance to have, you know, food for the caregiver as well.
And we need. To just take that clip and send
it out to all hospital administrators and try and
(36:18):
change that, yeah, give everybody.
A very. Simple, inexpensive thing.
Exactly, exactly. We deserve lunch.
All right. Well.
Let's see what else what what his caregiving taught you about
aging and both in terms of the challenges and the opportunities
we're so. Scared of aging.
We're so scared of it, whether you're a caregiver, whether
(36:39):
you're the person who is experiencing this, you know, and
we're so scared of it that we delay a lot of the different
things we can do to make this easier on ourselves.
We put off putting together a will.
We don't like to think about what we would want for end of
life wishes. This is a scary territory.
And So what ends up happening isthat you end up with a much
(37:02):
bigger problem on the other side.
It's reactive. We have to think about these
things after it's too late, right?
A family is left trying to, you know, argue back and forth of
like, what would mom have wantedin this scenario?
What, you know, what were her wishes?
We just never got to it because we felt awkward about it.
And so you end up with so much family conflicts, so much
(37:24):
confusion, so much misunderstanding because of that
delay. And I think if we were able to
approach this with positivity, with enthusiasm, with a
recognition and acknowledgement,this is just another life stage,
it would make this so much easier on everyone.
And there is so much good about advanced planning, about getting
(37:45):
proactive, about giving this gift to your kids, of having
everything set up with a nice little neat bow for them.
And so there's an amazing opportunity there to step up for
families if we could just approach it with courage and a
little more kindness to ourselves about this process.
(38:05):
It's not something you want to, you know, put your head in the
Sander out. It's coming.
So, so it's better to start early and really embrace this
life stage, right? And.
So your story was captured in the documentary Sweeney's Rock.
Great little documentary. How did you feel or how did you
feel to share your family's journey on film and what message
(38:27):
do you hope the viewers will take away from that There was?
1st That was just an incredible documentary.
Chris Poonzlon, he's very talented and it was an emotional
experience putting, you know, the experience of my dad and I
on film and sharing that with others.
I had to think really long and hard about what my dad would
(38:47):
have wanted in this scenario, mostly because at this point,
it's really hard to have the same kind of conversation I
would have with him as I would have had like 10 years ago.
The reason that I felt like thiswas a net positive to show to
others what it's really like inside our own living room in
(39:08):
our own home, walking this journey together was that one.
Chris had been a caregiver himself to his grandma, and he
was an avid runner. And so I knew because my dad was
a long distance runner, they would have gotten along
famously. He would have absolutely loved
Chris. And so it felt like the right
person to put, you know, it put our story into the hands of who
(39:31):
was really going to honor the experience that my dad was
having. I think the reason that I got
into this entire sort of caregiving world was because I
was motivated by the fact that there was meaning to this
experience for my dad and I beyond us.
(39:52):
That if we could think through how to make tools, how to make
this experience more normalized for others, it was going to be
easier for them. And so with that same that same.
Sort of attitude in mind. I felt like this was worthwhile
to put out there, even if just afew other families saw something
(40:13):
of themselves in our experience,it might make that experience a
little bit easier for them. But it was very emotional.
It's hard to see it. It's one thing to live it, it's
hard to see it. I made the mistake of being
right about to go into a public event when Chris sent me the
first cut of this documentary and it was about like 3 minutes
(40:33):
and I was outside the room. I'm like, sure, I'll take a look
at it. And you know, a couple minutes
in, I'm just like bawling and I was like, oh, no, this is
terrible. I'm about to go into this room,
you know, and I'm supposed to belooking professional and I just
the wheels are coming off on on seeing what this is really like
when you take a step back because it's hard, it's really
(40:55):
hard. It doesn't get easier.
You know, I'm 13 years in. My dad is so brave.
But, you know, there's, there isreal loss that comes with
caregiving for, you know, the way things once were.
So, you know, telling the story.I, I hope that it gives other
strength, but it was a big moment for us to really open up
(41:19):
our doors and be that vulnerable, the community and,
you know, let everybody see whatit's really like inside of our
own home as we're going through this.
So with all that. You've been going through over
the last 13 years, what are you doing to?
And it's the question we ask allour guests, so you can't get
away from it. What are you doing to age well?
Oh, such a good question. Well, every summer I allow
(41:45):
myself one new project just for me.
So I'm not sure if this is aboutaging well or just about living
well. But I I look forward to one big
project. And this summer we are putting
in a vegetable garden in our backyard.
There's so many benefits and studies around being outside and
(42:07):
having your feet in the dirt andyour hands in the soil and just
being amongst the plants and just gardening it in general.
And so I'm really looking forward, there's an excavator in
my backyard right now as we speak to this veggie garden.
I'm sure I'm going to be spending like $100 per tomato,
you know, versus going to the grocery store.
(42:28):
But I'm, I'm really looking forward to hopefully thousands
of hours of out there in the garden, really enjoying the
sunshine and making sure that mylife is filled with things that
I can look forward to as I age. Is there really?
A difference between living welland aging well, no.
There's not. I think it's one and the same.
(42:49):
I think it is one and the same and I'm actually really looking
forward to this. My I have felt like I'm a
grandma in training my whole life.
I'm just waiting for my family to catch up.
I can't wait. This is really what I'm meant to
be. I'm just interviewing for the
role right now so I'm really looking forward and I think this
is also inspired by my great grandma Grace to being in the
(43:10):
same place and hopefully occupying that same role in my
family. I never.
Picked up on the gardening piecefor my grandparents, and my
grandfather always had a garden.You go there, you know, he's
always working out in the field and, you know, always having
kind of, you know, some fresh vegetables and rhubarb pie,
like, fantastic. See that?
I need your grandparents. Yeah.
(43:32):
Yeah. But it the bug didn't catch you,
huh? But watch out.
It's tricky once you get into gardening, man, It's you know
you're hooked so maybe you're wise to stay away.
Well. My daughter has been bugging my
wife to let her do some gardening, so I might have to
maybe put some boxes out for herthis summer.
My wife is. Growing flowers in the box that
(43:53):
my daughter would love to grow plants in.
So maybe that will be a project this summer.
Good chance for us to bond. Yeah.
It's a it's a great activity to do together.
It's really fun and it's just, it's wonderful to see all the
life stages right. We're not so dissimilar.
So it's, it's really exciting tobe able to like really see from
a little baby all the way up into a full on tomato plant what
(44:17):
that process looks like. So I, I highly encourage it.
And that's the. Process of aging well, you know,
we talk in this podcast that aging well begins at birth,
probably more like conception, maybe even before conception.
But you know, it's it's a lifelong process.
It's not about suddenly I'm now 60 or 70 or 80.
I got to start thinking about how am I aging?
(44:37):
You know, we got to do it early on.
And you've brought up a lot of those topics throughout today's
conversation that, you know, we can be thinking about these
things from early on. We need to be planning.
And when we hit those milestone periods as markers in life, we
just got to, you know, hit them with gusto and, you know, with
purpose. And I think you're doing a
wonderful job of kind of puttingpurpose into this whole process
(45:00):
of aging well. Oh, thank.
You, Jeff, I, I really don't seeit as aging.
I just see it to your point as living.
So I think if everybody can, youknow, embrace what this can look
like in their own lives, you know, we're all going to be so
much better for it. And if we can just bring a
little bit of that to those who we serve at tender care, then I,
(45:23):
you know, I'm a happy, I'm a happy camper.
So so I'm definitely happy to bepart of this conversation and
excited for more families to seeit through that lens.
We would all be better off and better served.
And so what's? Next for you and Tender Care,
are there any upcoming innovations or you mentioned the
summer project, but any other projects that you're excited
(45:44):
about? Well, I'll give you one at work
and one at home. We are about a month away from
having one more little one join us in our family and I have just
entered into the third trimester.
So we are we are actively going to be bringing another member of
the family in who will be one day aging well with us.
(46:04):
So I'm very excited about that. And then at 10, thank you so
much at Tender Care. You know, you mentioned the need
for something like Angie's List.We're so excited.
We have already opened up, you know, a number of different
local trusted marketplaces across the East Coast for
families who are actively looking for services for family
(46:27):
members who are aging. And we're going to be expanding
across the country, so a lot of activity at Tender Care over the
next year as we start to offer, you know, this directory to
everyone, not just the East Coast.
So a lot of work and planning have gone into that to make this
available for everyone. So keep your eye on, keep your
(46:49):
eye on us because by the end of 2026, we're going to be
available for families looking for any kinds of services all
across the country. I'm excited.
For that, because I'm on the West Coast, so we're we're.
Coming for you and I'm not getting.
Any younger SO. Amen to that.
It's a good thing. So how can?
Our viewers and our listeners connect with you and tender
(47:10):
care. Oh.
Well, first, I'm always open to experiences, you know, new, new
perspectives. And so you can find me on
LinkedIn under Shawna Sweeney. But to try out our tools and
services, there is a totally free app that you can download
on the App Store. Just look up Tendercare.
(47:32):
And then if you want to learn more about us and all kinds of
different resources and tools, you can actually find us on our
website, trytendercare.com or follow along with us on social
media. Find us on Instagram at Try
Tendercare and come be part of our community.
We would love to have you, wouldlove to have your voice and we'd
(47:53):
love to help in any way that we can.
And we'll have links. To all that in the description
notes, fantastic. You have a Facebook page.
I mean you're a, you're a far more meta executive.
We do have. A Facebook page as well.
Try Tendercare. We're most active on Instagram,
which is owned by Facebook. So to your point, I have, I
have, I have definitely built out on the platform, but you can
(48:13):
find us under both Facebook and Instagram.
I'm sure you have a little. Bit better sense of how to use
social media than me, you know? I don't know, maybe, but I often
find, I often find those who arebuilding community and are out
there, they how to use these tools best for their community.
But yes, I do come from a background in which I really
think about how do you create those spaces online for people
(48:36):
to gather and to meet each otherand really connect.
It's probably the best part of my job, which is really watching
the tender, like the tender carecommunity grow and start to make
friends and connect with one another and start to meet up
with each other offline and share their experiences
together. That's the best part of my day,
(48:57):
when we realize that we have been responsible for bringing
different people together to make this journey a little
easier for them. Was there anything?
We missed in today's conversation that we need to
share, I think. You got it.
I think you got it. No, just come check us out.
We're so excited. We love the feedback.
And if you've got any great ideas for new tools or things
(49:18):
that you wish someone would go ahead and build for your family,
drop us a line. You can find us on the website
and our entire team usually getsback within less than a day, and
that's including our engineers. That's including and our
designers and our product leads.So there is a real opportunity
to, if you want something come to us and chances are we can
(49:41):
make it happen for you. What's the?
The line from the movie, if you if you build it, they will come.
Yeah, that's the opposite. Now if if you come, we will
build it if you go. Exactly.
Exactly. Well, this has.
Been a really, really great conversation and I am so excited
for the the tools and the opportunities that are coming
(50:04):
out there for people who have aging parents and they're aging
themselves and, you know, need to somehow connect to just have
better care for themselves and for others.
And so I love what you're doing.Just keep doing it and just keep
aging well and keep helping people age well and living well.
There we go. Thank you so much.
I really appreciate it. You're welcome.
(50:27):
Thank you for listening. I hope you benefited from
today's podcast and until next time, keep aging well.
Welcome to the Aging Well podcast where we explore the
strategies, innovations, and real life stories that help us
live longer, healthier, and moremeaningful lives.
I am your host Doctor Jeff Armstrong.
My guest is someone who embodiesresilience and innovation in the
face of life's greatest challenges.
Caregiving. Shauna Sweeney is a former Meta
executive who transformed her personal journey caring for her
(00:25):
father, diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's, into a
groundbreaking solution for millions.
As the founder of Tendercare andAI powered Platform, Shawna is
helping to ease the emotional and logistical burden on the
54,000,000 Americans providing unpaid care to loved ones, a
role that's valued at nearly $873 billion annually but comes
(00:46):
at an enormous personal cost. Her work has been featured in
Time, Business Insider, and The Huffington Post, and her
powerful story was captured in the short documentary Sweeny's
Rock. Today, we'll explore the
intersection of technology and caregiving, hear about Shawna's
own strategies for maintaining her health and well-being, and
discuss what strategies are needed to better support
(01:08):
caregivers everywhere and age well.
So, Shawna, welcome to the AgingWell podcast.
It is such an honor to have you with us for this episode.
Can you take us back to the moment your father was diagnosed
with early onset Alzheimer's? And how did that experience
shape your path personally and professionally?
Such a good question, Jeff. Man, that's a hard one for me to
(01:29):
go back to. Yeah, I dive into the hard ones
first. Yeah, I'm like, oh, you're
really getting me right right into the the offset here.
Umm, I was in New York at the time.
I was working at Facebook. I was in a meeting.
We knew something was going on. My dad was a ship captain over
in San Francisco. He's a bar pilot.
And so, you know, I had actuallybeen the one to urge him to tell
(01:52):
his doctor that there might be something going on.
His stories were getting a little longer winded.
He's having a harder time managing through some of the
things that were no problem frombefore.
So that was a long conversation.He went in to the neurologist
and my mom was with him at the time.
And then I remember getting all of these calls ringing up on my
(02:14):
phone and I couldn't pick up because I was in the middle of a
meeting at work. But I knew like something.
What had happened was that my dad had been diagnosed with
early onset Alzheimer's. I really didn't know much about
what Alzheimer's was at the time, but what my mom told me is
my dad had taken off from the doctor's office.
We didn't know where he was. It had been a couple hours and
(02:34):
it was just really scary. It was really scary for a few
different reasons. I didn't know anything about
this illness. I also just didn't know where my
dad was. So clearly this was really bad
and I felt pretty powerless because I was across the country
at this point. So even if I wanted to help go
look for him, they couldn't. Luckily for us, he turned up
about 14 hours later, but that was like with their whole family
(02:55):
and friends searching for him atthe time.
And that was really my hard start introduction into what it
means to a family living with a member of your family with
Alzheimer's. I was remote 3500 miles away,
and I was sort of numb to the entire experience at that point.
You know, you're walking througha little bit of a daze or a
(03:17):
fugue state, if you will. I've heard so many other family
caregivers talk about this because you don't know, you
know, you're kind of an emergency, but you don't really
know what kind of emergency you're in.
So it feels like very strange where you know you're in a high
stakes moment in time, but you have no idea what bad thing is
(03:37):
coming for you and from which direction.
So that was really my entry point.
It's been 13 years now. My dad is now my dad Mike.
We're very, very close. He's still living at home in the
house I grew up in back in San Francisco.
I have been his primary caregiver for the past thirteen
years. I'm super proud of that.
And, and we figured out a prettygood system.
(03:59):
My dad is just a fantastic partner in all this.
He's so brave. And we're, you know, knock on
wood, hopefully going for 13 more years of this.
So we have a lot to say and to share about what this experience
is like for so many other families.
Yeah. And I want to dive a lot deeper
into that story. It's fascinating.
I mean, he had, I mean, there was like really almost no sign
(04:22):
that he had dementia and just had that quickly, had an instant
where he was lost for 14 hours. Yeah, yeah.
Well, this is emotional. It's emotional too.
So I think some of this was like, you know, processing.
What does this mean now for you when you're sitting in that
pilot seat and you've been giventhat news, what does that look
like? How do you want to spend your
(04:43):
time? Yeah, it's AI.
Have tremendous empathy for anyone who is on the receiving
end of that. And I want, again, we're going
to dive a little deeper into thestory, But first, what does it
mean for you to age well, you know?
I have always looked at aging a little differently than I think
what mainstream ideas around age, which is, you know, I think
(05:03):
delay as long as possible and really hold on to youth for as
long as you possibly can. My first babysitter was my great
grandma. Her name is Grace.
She lived to be 102. And so my first best friend, I
like to say, was already in her early 90s by the time I, I came
into the picture. And she was just a phenomenal,
(05:25):
an old woman. I really didn't see her age at
all. Obviously physically we looked a
lot different. I was only 6-7 years old.
And she's, I really just understood her as this
incredible human being who I just happened to be lucky enough
to have in my family. And so when I think about aging
well, I always think about Gracebecause she lived her life so
(05:47):
beautifully principled based offof spending time with family,
having her independence. And I think a lot about that in
how I think about my own aging. I think that this is a chapter
of life just in the same way that when we're a teenager,
we're in our college years and it's something to be embraced
and to be met with enthusiasm and not to have any shame around
(06:11):
it or to be thinking about how you delay this.
We can't, you know, this is not an optional, but I think there's
a lot of ways to go about it with dignity and with
independence and real confidencein aging that I would love to
be. You know, I would love to have
more people perceive this chapter of everybody's life
(06:32):
through this lens because there's so much to be gained.
I think when you look at it through a positive, positive
mindset. And I think that's what we're
trying to accomplish here on this podcast.
Hopefully we're doing a better job of it.
You're. Doing great well.
Thanks. So what are some of the biggest
challenges you faced early on asa caregiver?
I mean, for one, you were acrossthe country, but how do you
navigate these challenges? First, I think I didn't have
(06:55):
words for it. Language, you know, caregiver.
It's kind of a muddy definition,you know, in our society.
Does that mean this is your job?Does this mean you're a parent?
I really didn't know what it meant to be leaning in to take
care of my dad. I was starting to join every
doctor's appointment. I was flying back every couple
of weeks to check in on him. I was reading up until like 3-4
(07:16):
in the morning on Alzheimer's and what to expect and some of
the stages that we were going tobe going through.
But I really didn't know much about this.
You don't go to school for family caregiving, especially
when you're taking care of someone with a chronic illness.
So it was a lot of education that was very informal in the
very beginning. I went in under the expectation
(07:38):
that meant, like many of us, when you get sick, the the thing
that you need to do is just get a great doctor.
And then once you've got a greatdoctor, they're going to give
you some medicine and then you're going to be good and
you're right back out on the field.
What I quickly realized with Alzheimer's is that is not how
it works. You are in a neurologist
appointment once every six months, sometimes for about 15
(07:58):
minutes, and then you are back out again.
And the biggest question at thatpoint was what am I going to do
with my dad and how am I going to be the best daughter I can
and show up for him for those five months, five months and
three weeks, you know, outside of the doctors office.
And so I had to apply a lot of the same lessons I've learned,
(08:18):
you know, growing up building teams in big tech.
How do I think about my team, mystaff?
What are the roles and responsibilities that are going
to be necessary across my whole family in order to make sure my
dad is safe? Very hard to do when you're
living in a different state. You know, you're dealing with
different time zones. You're not there, so you can't
see if something new is happening.
(08:39):
So I was living a lot with that guilt.
Like, man, what happens? You know, there's like something
new that develops and I'm not around to see it.
Do we have enough checks and balances in place to step in to
make sure that my dad is safe? How do we make sure that he's
feeling good about this whole experience?
It's a very rocky, emotional road to go down.
My dad is super independent, so things like taking away the
(09:02):
driver's license was a big devastatement for my family.
And then it brings all kinds of new challenges, which is like,
OK, great. If my dad can't drive, who's
picking up the groceries? Like how is he getting to his
doctor's appointments? How does he have any sense of
independence? You know, so we, we got him a
bike. Like you start to do all these
sort of like mini problem solving solutions to try and
(09:25):
stopgap a lot of the ripple effect of what happens when
you're caregiving from afar and when you're, you know, really on
this journey together. I think if I had it to do over
again, you know, something I hear thousands of different
caregivers who are now on our platform at Tendercare say is I
just wish I could have been a little easier on.
(09:46):
Because at that point, you really think it's just your
family. You don't realize you were
actually in this experience withmillions of other people.
You think this is just the bad thing that's happened to you.
And when bad things start happening, you don't realize,
hey, this is actually expected. This is part of this process.
You think it's because you've made a bunch of mistakes and
that you just weren't a good enough kid.
(10:08):
You weren't smart enough, you didn't research enough, you
didn't put enough checks and balances in place when really
you're there's no a in this. There's no, if you do these four
things, everything's going to beperfect and just the way it was
before. You're actually on a progressive
journey and you know what you'regoing for here when you're
caregiving is the best possible outcome.
(10:29):
That's going to be realistic across your family, across your
loved one. That's a very different mindset
than the way most of us live therest of our life.
And so that leads us to Tender Care.
Tell us about Tender Care. What inspired you to create it
and how does the use of AI support family caregivers?
So Tendercare is the single one stop shop for a family who is
(10:52):
embarking on a journey of moderncaregiving.
It is a set of tools to get educated on what it means based
off of conditions and family dynamics to be a caregiver, to
be leaning in as a family unit and taking care of someone.
A set of tools to get organized,store all of the important
information you are going to need as a caregiver and as a
(11:15):
family along the way. Things like health insurance
information, social Social Security, where does your loved
one bank? What documents are legal, You
know, paperwork has already beenfilled out, what insurance
policies do you have? These are a lot of different
disparate pieces of information that actually all come together
to help a family make very smartdecisions.
(11:36):
And then it's a number of different assessments and
guides. There's different parts of
caregiving all along the way. You know, I mentioned a few.
Well, you know, when is it time to take away the keys?
When is it time to think about moving?
Because, you know, mom or dad's home is no longer the best
possible place for them to stay safe.
There's too many, there's too many stairs or it's really hard
(11:58):
to get in and out of the shower.What are some of those checks
and balances and assessments youcan take to know the right
moment in time to really come together and have some of these
discussions? And then how do you just stay on
top of the flow of this? So much of this is the daily
parts of making sure you're not missing a dentist appointment,
making sure that you're showing up and you've got, you know, all
(12:18):
the coordinated travel for, you know, an upcoming doctor's
visit. And then on the other side of
the spectrum, every once in a while there's an emergency, you
know, something happens, there'sa slip and fall.
There's a reason to get to the ER really quickly.
How do you make sure that everybody is prepared?
We've got the right information.So, you know, doctor can move
really quickly and give the bestcare.
(12:39):
All of this is on tender care. It's really the set of tools I
wish I had had when I first started.
This is really trial by error, you know, be like, wow, this
would have been helpful at that point in time.
And so how do we make sure that this is a little bit easier for
everyone else? We're also in this moment in
time, which is so exciting, which is, you know, we are,
(13:00):
we're in the midst of an AI renaissance where we are looking
at being able to use technology to solve very complex, very
personal, unique problems with incredible precision.
We couldn't do this before. And so it's so exciting to be
able to bring AI to this particular experience, like very
(13:21):
simple, pragmatic, like tools. We're integrated with Medicare,
for instance. And so to be able to, in a few
clicks, ingest all of your health data, your medications,
your past visits, your primary care physicians that's just
specific to you or your loved one.
And then immediately start applying all the checks and
(13:42):
balances against databases of like contraindications for
medications, like really great strong care, gerontologist
approved care tips on top of what is very unique and specific
to your loved one. These are some of the ways AI
can be sprinkled throughout thisexperience and this information
(14:04):
that just makes the tools that we're building today so much
more powerful than they could have been, you know, just a
couple years ago. Yeah, we started this podcast,
but this is we're in our fourth season my Co host night Corbin.
We, we're kind of initially looking at, you know, we, the
world really needs some kind of almost like an Angie's List for
aging and, you know, started kind of exploring those ideas we
(14:26):
had, you know, and, and programslike Tendercare have thankfully
kind of stepped in there becausewe, we were like, I don't have
the technological background to be able to figure this all out.
And, and just the explosion of technology and information has
just occurred in that period of time.
It's just amazing. And you're, you're, you're
speaking my language. Jeff list for caregiving is
(14:49):
exactly what's needed. You know, so many of us were,
you know, we're families that were spread out from each other.
We're living in different places.
Word of mouth is harder for us. And so how do you really quickly
find the best trusted services in a specific area that you can
feel comfortable putting into your own home, your mom's home,
(15:09):
your dad's home. You need that right, really
quickly. And so one of the things that
has been most exciting for us isa trusted services marketplace
that we have rolled out, startedon the East Coast, rolling out
across the country of like vetting all of the different
services, senior move managers, elder law attorneys, right care
(15:31):
concierge is how do you make sure you know what the best are?
What are the criteria for looking for the best?
You know, those like local heroes who are doing incredible
above and beyond service. And then how do you very quickly
surface that to, you know, a group of people that may not
even know the name of that service?
You know, senior move manager? That's something that I learned
(15:53):
along this journey. So how do you make those
connection points for a family to feel really good about the
choices they're making? It's one of the things where
we've seen quite frankly the biggest a demand and also the
biggest opportunity on our platform it would seem.
Like, so many families don't know what they don't know.
You know, we didn't have no ideathat they need a certain
(16:14):
service. Yeah.
Exactly. You know what the problem is?
It's kind of like, I like to think about it almost like
calling 911. It's very clear something is not
going well and you need to bringin some outside help.
But it's not really on the family, I don't think, nor
should it be to know the exact name of all of these different
services. I think it's just important to
(16:34):
focus on giving great care to your loved 1 and flagging that
you need help when you need it. That's really where we've built
tender care to step in and immediately do a very quick
assessment. Kind of like that emergency call
to then immediately suggest, hey, here is what we think is
really going to help you right now.
It sounds like you need home care.
Here's the difference between home care and home health.
(16:56):
Here's what you want to look forin a really great home care
provider. Why don't we go ahead and
connect you to three or four that match a lot of what you're
saying is going to be the most useful for your family, so can
you? Share a real world example of
how tender care has helped ease the burden for a caregiver.
We just. You know, we're getting these
stories all the time. It's like my favorite part of
(17:17):
the day. We get feedback.
We've got thousands of families who are on our platform.
We just got one actually from one of our, our, you know,
amazing family caregivers who are on the platform.
She has actually started using tender care not just for her
parents but also for her kids. She's got college age kids.
(17:38):
Most family caregivers are usually kind of what do you call
sandwich? They're in the middle.
They're usually caring for many people.
There was a car accident that her daughter was in and she
dropped everything. She was on the way to the ER to
make sure that her daughter was OK.
Realized very quickly they didn't have any of the paperwork
that they would need in order tobe able to go in and give the
(18:00):
doctor all the background information on her.
But they were about to turn around, it was about 30 minutes
away, their house, and go back and get all the paperwork
because that's what normally you'd need.
You need all the medications, everything.
And then she has gone that she actually had all of this on
tender care. She had built a profile for her
daughter, realized she had all of the paperwork copies, all the
(18:23):
summaries, the health and insurance cards, realized she
had that and they just kept going to the ER Luckily
everything turned out her daughter was fine.
But that's just like that happened yesterday.
So a really great example real world of where you know when
we're doing our job over on our side, we are there at the moment
when you really need us and it makes a big difference in that
(18:46):
moment. You'll know it when it comes.
And so we're really proud of serving that role.
You've. Initiated this company to best
serve seniors and you know agingadults is is they need care and
so families can caring for the older adults.
Are you beginning to kind of seethe an opportunity to kind of
extend that to the younger as well?
(19:06):
Is this something that's going to be growing or is it something
you're already working on you? Know it's a great question.
We, we listen to our families who are on the platform and
we've watched, you know, we started with just the single
simple use case of taking care of mom or dad.
And then there's been this overwhelming sort of response
back of, oh, this can also be used to help me take care of
(19:29):
myself in the case of something going wrong in the case of my
kids. So we've made many of our tools
multifunctional for those purposes.
As we're following what our families are asking for.
One of the most interesting parts that we've seen has been
as caregivers go through the journey of helping take care of
(19:49):
their parents, it immediately starts lighting up this idea
that they want to put everythinginto one place and get
everything settled for their ownkids.
So Self has actually come up at a really important piece for us
to consider how we build out andexpand.
How do you actually, now that you become a little bit of a
(20:10):
graduate in caregiving and this.Chapter apply those same lessons
to how you think about giving a gift to your own children,
getting a lot of this set up ahead of time.
So we're seeing both of those use cases.
We still focus primarily on helping take care of mom or dad.
We think like we can do the mosthelp by bringing sort of a set
(20:31):
of services and tools to the millions of people who are just
starting that journey. But we find very quickly, as
many of our families go through a lot of these different
workflows and get organized, they want to stay on the
platform and they want to start using it for thinking much
longer down the road and being much more proactive.
Yeah, I see. This exploding in very short
(20:53):
period of time, I would think just with AI and just with
technology and just with the need that is out there in our
community, this could just be such a useful tool for so many
people. It's it's an.
Honor to build technology like this.
I, you know, I've been enamored with technology for a very long
time For it's for, I think it's strengths, which is that if you
(21:14):
build the right tools for these very critical moments in time,
you can now improve the experience for millions, if not
billions of people, right? The, the influence that you can
have on just making some of these experiences more positive
just hit so much scale. It's really exciting to think
(21:36):
about, you know, not just improving what this is like for
your own family or for your own community, but for so many
people who have not even startedthis work yet, what what this is
going to look like as they startto confront a lot of these same
situations and conversations down the road.
So yeah, we're, we're really excited to be there and to be of
help and to be of service and tomake this a little bit easier
(21:59):
caregiving. Can really take a serious toll
on us physically, emotionally what are some personal
strategies that have helped you maintain your own well-being
while caring for your dad you know if.
I'm totally honest. This was really rough in the
first couple of years. I was in a really dark place.
I, you know, I've mentioned this.
I felt like a lot of this was myfault.
(22:19):
I was so mad at myself for not doing a better job.
You know, there's a couple of instances where I missed some
mail that was my my dad's healthinsurance renewal.
I was because I was in New York,California.
I was so mad at myself for jeopardizing his health
insurance. And, you know, why didn't I set
up a system ahead of that? I was so mad at myself when I
didn't realize he had been taking thousands of dollars out
(22:42):
of the ATM every day and then losing it.
And why hadn't I thought of a system ahead of that, you know,
to make sure that he wasn't losing as much.
So I was not in a good spot, just trying to stay afloat at
work, praying I wasn't going to get fired because I was having
to step in and out of meetings when the doctor would call
because you didn't know the nexttime you were going to get a
(23:03):
chance to talk to the doctor. So it felt super disruptive.
It took me a while to get to a really strong and resilient
place. So I can't tell you that there
was just this magic switch and everything was great for me.
You know, I'm 13 years in, so I'm lucky enough, like I had
enough time to kind of figure some of this stuff out.
I do think, you know, mental health is huge.
(23:25):
We lose ourselves as caregivers and the identity of those we're
caring for. We're taking care of mom, we're
taking care of dad. You forget to book your own
dentist appointment, that's the last thing on the list that
you're going to hit. And that adds up over time.
When we talk to, you know, thosewho've been at this for some
time, their their biggest adviceis be kinder to yourself.
(23:45):
In the beginning. It's we never listen.
You know, it's the psychology ofthose in the family.
Everybody's got one who's the first one to show up when
something's wrong, We don't listen.
But you know, now I really feel like it's part of my duty to
really go ahead and carry that message through.
Anyone who's going through this,it's OK.
Like take the moment for yourself.
(24:06):
It's, you know, in the long run going to be so much more
important that you stay in a really good spot.
This is an ultra marathon you are on.
You're not going to be able to get through that To Do List and
have everything perfect on the other side.
Very important to make sure thatyou're making time for yourself
in all of this so you don't burnout.
That was going to be. My next question how do you
(24:27):
balance the demands of being an entrepreneur and a caregiver
without burning out? Do you have any other secret
strategies, the things that you do just to kind of, you know,
that self-care time that we needwhen when we're under a heavy
burden of having to care for others?
I mean, Jeff. It's crazy I've got 4 kids.
I literally I 5 minutes before this podcast I had my 4 year old
(24:48):
unfortunately not feeling well. She's throwing up trying to
figure out on one hand, getting like a pediatrician appointment
today, figuring out last minute care for her while trying to
show up for work on time. It's not easy what happens
outside of the screen. I think a lot of us are are
feeling that way. So I actually think it's more
about just being permission, youknow, giving ourselves
(25:10):
permission to talk about it. You know, there is no perfect
outcome or world in which you'regoing to set up a system in
which you are going to have, youknow, 36 hours in a 24 hour day.
It's not possible. And the reality is we're being
pulled in a million different directions.
I think having a little humor about it and grace and
forgiveness for ourselves is really the most important part.
(25:30):
And then the rest of this, you know, is solvable.
You figure it out along the way.But we're all in it together.
We're all experiencing this, thecrunch of modern life.
You know, it requires all of us to be superhuman, which is just
impossible. And so, so I think it's just
being realistic about it and, you know, taking your wins where
you can get them and just understanding, you know, you can
(25:52):
fight another day and whatever you didn't get to today or
whatever wasn't perfect. It's going to be OK.
And it seems. Like there needs to be a certain
sense of vulnerability there that, you know, you said we're
all in it together and we are. And I think a lot of people in
that position of having to care for, you know, their parents
and, and their kids at the same time, they want to be
(26:12):
superhuman. And they, they don't realize
that they don't have to do it alone.
And that if they just let peopleknow that they have need help,
that that could be a huge benefit to them.
Yeah. Asking for.
Help is a skill, right? Being able to really put that
out to your family and your community.
It's not something we all feel comfortable with.
We're scared. We think that we're going to
come off as needy or demanding or people are going to be
(26:34):
annoyed, you know, or it's not. Don't even bother.
People are too busy. You don't want to, you know,
disrupt them. It's really important to refine
in that muscle. Like really just try,
experiment, ask for help with a couple things.
You'll be so surprised how many of your community, your network,
your boss, your workplace wants to help.
If you can really articulate it,it's the most incredible,
(26:56):
liberating thing to realize. You're not alone in this.
It takes a while for everyone tocome to that point where they
realize, but once you do, it becomes survivable.
So what advice? Do you have for someone who's
just starting their caregiving journey and already feeling
overwhelmed? I mean it's.
It's overwhelming right at the very beginning.
It's so overwhelming. First, I think that you're not
(27:20):
the first to go through this. This is part of the human
experience. And so there is so much advice
and wisdom that's out there on the Internet, in books.
You come to Tendercare. There's a whole community on
Tendercare of those you can talkto who've been through this
before. So really just getting your
grounding and knowing this is something that many others have
(27:41):
experienced and you're going to be OK and you're going to slowly
learn what you need to ahead of time.
I'm also a big proponent of therapy.
I think whether you know, whatever sort of like
therapeutics you need, whether talking to somebody else,
getting out in nature, having a 10 minute walk, really just
getting your foundation strong as you go through what is
ultimately like a pretty destabilizing or initial
(28:03):
process. Very important to build that
time in for yourself. And then just remember that
there's all kinds of companies like mine, like Tendercare who
are out there trying to activelybuild tools to make this easier
for you. So come in, check us out, see if
what we are able to offer reallyhelps get you grounded and give
(28:24):
you what you need to have a solid foundation for what will
hopefully be and actually like very positive and life changing
experience. You know, I say this and it's so
counterintuitive, but Alzheimer's has been an
incredible teacher for me. It has brought out the best in
me as a human being and how to be more empathetic for my
(28:46):
family, how to show up and know how strong I am to be able to do
some of the work I've done for my family.
If you can really see what giftsare coming to you through this,
and it's not going to be easy. There's going to be some really
hard parts of this. It's going to pull out of you A
part of yourself that you didn'teven realize was possible, which
(29:08):
is an incredibly inspiring thingto be able to sit on the other
side of and say, hey, when, you know, it came time I showed up
for my family and I repaid the favor to them for all the
kindnesses they've given to me. You know, when things got hard,
I was able to dig deep and find the strength in myself to do
this. All of that is in front of
(29:29):
someone who is thinking about taking on the role of caregiver
for their family. And it is an incredible
perspective to have moving through the world on the other
side of it. So get smart, get connected, get
your local support, get the tools you need, and then just
know at some point you're going to be able to look back on this
(29:51):
and see the gifts in all of it. I think that's an.
Important attitude and that's where we kind of talk on this
podcast a lot about gratitude with two TS and the attitude of
gratitude. It helps us to just recognize
that the stuff we're going through and other people are
going through it. For one thing, if we just kind
of look to the end of the tunnel, there's always some some
(30:12):
good that comes out of it. And it's it's very easy to sit
there and say why me this is horrible and you know, go down
all kind of different rabbit holes with that.
But you know, if we just engage with it and let it grow us, I
think it's such a beautiful thing.
I so well said. It's so well said and this whole
experience, you know, realizing even just, you know, knowing how
(30:35):
to ask for help, knowing that you don't need to be strong all
the time, knowing that your family's really there for you
and ready to step up, really working through some of the
harder parts of relationships. These are all the invitations
that this process allows for. If you can see it for that.
And so you know there is gold inthose hills, and so in your.
(30:55):
View What are some of the biggest systemic gaps that we
see in our healthcare system in regards to support for family
caregivers? You know, it's interesting, we
still treat a lot of what bringssomeone into being a family
caregiver as this very like health medical oriented
experience. You know, you start to refer to
(31:15):
a family member as a patient as opposed to mom or at mom or dad.
And I think there is a real flawin that line of thinking
because, you know, so much of family caregiving is just about
regular life. It's about groceries.
It's about how do you make sure mom or dad has, you know, social
(31:37):
activities in their life. It's not about going to the
hospital. It's not about the doctor.
And so I think right there, there is a misalignment to what
the actual experience is like for a family.
It's not all connected to illness.
And to the second piece is that oftentimes family caregivers are
(31:59):
so busy doing the care, they're not great advocates for
themselves. So they don't talk about what
they need. They don't vote as a bloc there.
It's very hard to really put your finger on the pulse of what
this community, which is ultimately 54,000,000 families
are really spending their time on because they're so busy
trying to get it all done. And so I think there's
(32:21):
oftentimes sort of a not intentional, but an ignorance of
this, the huge body of Labor that is happening, right, you
know, underneath our noses. Right now you're looking at at
least 24 hours on average insideof a family that's being spent
on any number of caregiving tasks, picking up groceries,
(32:43):
driving to the doctor, getting on the phone, filling out forms
to try and get reimbursed or to get, you know, sort of access to
different local community resources.
So a lot of work and effort thatgoes into a lot of this.
And so I think just the first step is making sure that it's
seen, then you can actually start to create solutions around
(33:05):
it. But first we got to acknowledge
that this is actually happening across our country and it's
going to be happening to a lot more of us.
As you know, one in five Americans hit 65.
That's scary. I.
Think haven't looked up the data.
I heard it recently how many, how we've kind of hit a
threshold of the percentage of people that are over the age of
65 now is like greater than I think number of people that are
(33:25):
under the age of 18 that's. Right, That's right.
So there is a huge opportunity in that as well to really think
about this chapter of aging and you know what a 65 and up look
like, not just for, you know, the person who's entering into
this, but also the whole family that's going to be experiencing
this right alongside them. So we've got a lot of work to do
(33:47):
in this space, but I'm, I'm really energized by a lot of the
conversations like the ones herethat I'm seeing happening around
this. And we just got to, I think
we've got to keep going and really normalizing a lot of this
in order for, you know, a lot ofour different larger and, you
know, industries like the medical, you know, just
healthcare in general, the financial industry to really
(34:08):
acknowledge and recognize this. And you know, on the other, the
heels of that acknowledgement, Ithink comes a lot of empathy and
a lot of new tools to just make this experience a lot easier.
So if you can, just. Wait, wave a magic wand and
change one thing about caregiversupport in the US?
What would that be? So many.
Things Jeff. Gosh, okay, if I got 1 golden
(34:30):
ticket to change one thing, I think I'm gonna do something
really small because sometimes Ifind that starting with
something small leads to something big.
So one of the hardest parts of being a family caregiver, I
would say is when you're in emergency mode.
This is many of us have experienced this.
When you end up in the ER, you're with your loved one.
(34:52):
This is just a brutal experience.
You don't know how long you're in the waiting room for.
You are advocating usually fiercely for your loved one.
It's scary. It's really, it's really rough.
One of the things that I think could immediately just make this
experience easier is that in many hospitals where you have a
(35:15):
patient who's admitted into the ER, only that patient is given
food. And so, so I can't tell you how
many times I've been in the ER with my dad in which I've gone
like 8 hours without eating because of the hospital policy
around this. Now there is no world in which
my dad cannot have a caregiver with him going into an
(35:36):
experience like this. And it's amazing how much better
a caregiver feels if you have lunch.
And so I know that's so small, but it's I think actually a
little kind of keyhole into the bigger problem, which is that,
you know, we're there, we're we're omnipresent as family
caregivers and yet we're not always considered in that
(35:58):
equation. And so just the basics, you
know, a meal would go a really long way if that became part of,
you know, broader US hospital policy in ERS and patient
admittance to have, you know, food for the caregiver as well.
And we need. To just take that clip and send
it out to all hospital administrators and try and
(36:18):
change that, yeah, give everybody.
A very. Simple, inexpensive thing.
Exactly, exactly. We deserve lunch.
All right. Well.
Let's see what else what what his caregiving taught you about
aging and both in terms of the challenges and the opportunities
we're so. Scared of aging.
We're so scared of it, whether you're a caregiver, whether
(36:39):
you're the person who is experiencing this, you know, and
we're so scared of it that we delay a lot of the different
things we can do to make this easier on ourselves.
We put off putting together a will.
We don't like to think about what we would want for end of
life wishes. This is a scary territory.
And So what ends up happening isthat you end up with a much
(37:02):
bigger problem on the other side.
It's reactive. We have to think about these
things after it's too late, right?
A family is left trying to, you know, argue back and forth of
like, what would mom have wantedin this scenario?
What, you know, what were her wishes?
We just never got to it because we felt awkward about it.
And so you end up with so much family conflicts, so much
(37:24):
confusion, so much misunderstanding because of that
delay. And I think if we were able to
approach this with positivity, with enthusiasm, with a
recognition and acknowledgement,this is just another life stage,
it would make this so much easier on everyone.
And there is so much good about advanced planning, about getting
(37:45):
proactive, about giving this gift to your kids, of having
everything set up with a nice little neat bow for them.
And so there's an amazing opportunity there to step up for
families if we could just approach it with courage and a
little more kindness to ourselves about this process.
(38:05):
It's not something you want to, you know, put your head in the
Sander out. It's coming.
So, so it's better to start early and really embrace this
life stage, right? And.
So your story was captured in the documentary Sweeney's Rock.
Great little documentary. How did you feel or how did you
feel to share your family's journey on film and what message
(38:27):
do you hope the viewers will take away from that There was?
1st That was just an incredible documentary.
Chris Poonzlon, he's very talented and it was an emotional
experience putting, you know, the experience of my dad and I
on film and sharing that with others.
I had to think really long and hard about what my dad would
(38:47):
have wanted in this scenario, mostly because at this point,
it's really hard to have the same kind of conversation I
would have with him as I would have had like 10 years ago.
The reason that I felt like thiswas a net positive to show to
others what it's really like inside our own living room in
(39:08):
our own home, walking this journey together was that one.
Chris had been a caregiver himself to his grandma, and he
was an avid runner. And so I knew because my dad was
a long distance runner, they would have gotten along
famously. He would have absolutely loved
Chris. And so it felt like the right
person to put, you know, it put our story into the hands of who
(39:31):
was really going to honor the experience that my dad was
having. I think the reason that I got
into this entire sort of caregiving world was because I
was motivated by the fact that there was meaning to this
experience for my dad and I beyond us.
(39:52):
That if we could think through how to make tools, how to make
this experience more normalized for others, it was going to be
easier for them. And so with that same that same.
Sort of attitude in mind. I felt like this was worthwhile
to put out there, even if just afew other families saw something
(40:13):
of themselves in our experience,it might make that experience a
little bit easier for them. But it was very emotional.
It's hard to see it. It's one thing to live it, it's
hard to see it. I made the mistake of being
right about to go into a public event when Chris sent me the
first cut of this documentary and it was about like 3 minutes
(40:33):
and I was outside the room. I'm like, sure, I'll take a look
at it. And you know, a couple minutes
in, I'm just like bawling and I was like, oh, no, this is
terrible. I'm about to go into this room,
you know, and I'm supposed to belooking professional and I just
the wheels are coming off on on seeing what this is really like
when you take a step back because it's hard, it's really
(40:55):
hard. It doesn't get easier.
You know, I'm 13 years in. My dad is so brave.
But, you know, there's, there isreal loss that comes with
caregiving for, you know, the way things once were.
So, you know, telling the story.I, I hope that it gives other
strength, but it was a big moment for us to really open up
(41:19):
our doors and be that vulnerable, the community and,
you know, let everybody see whatit's really like inside of our
own home as we're going through this.
So with all that. You've been going through over
the last 13 years, what are you doing to?
And it's the question we ask allour guests, so you can't get
away from it. What are you doing to age well?
Oh, such a good question. Well, every summer I allow
(41:45):
myself one new project just for me.
So I'm not sure if this is aboutaging well or just about living
well. But I I look forward to one big
project. And this summer we are putting
in a vegetable garden in our backyard.
There's so many benefits and studies around being outside and
(42:07):
having your feet in the dirt andyour hands in the soil and just
being amongst the plants and just gardening it in general.
And so I'm really looking forward, there's an excavator in
my backyard right now as we speak to this veggie garden.
I'm sure I'm going to be spending like $100 per tomato,
you know, versus going to the grocery store.
(42:28):
But I'm, I'm really looking forward to hopefully thousands
of hours of out there in the garden, really enjoying the
sunshine and making sure that mylife is filled with things that
I can look forward to as I age. Is there really?
A difference between living welland aging well, no.
There's not. I think it's one and the same.
(42:49):
I think it is one and the same and I'm actually really looking
forward to this. My I have felt like I'm a
grandma in training my whole life.
I'm just waiting for my family to catch up.
I can't wait. This is really what I'm meant to
be. I'm just interviewing for the
role right now so I'm really looking forward and I think this
is also inspired by my great grandma Grace to being in the
(43:10):
same place and hopefully occupying that same role in my
family. I never.
Picked up on the gardening piecefor my grandparents, and my
grandfather always had a garden.You go there, you know, he's
always working out in the field and, you know, always having
kind of, you know, some fresh vegetables and rhubarb pie,
like, fantastic. See that?
I need your grandparents. Yeah.
(43:32):
Yeah. But it the bug didn't catch you,
huh? But watch out.
It's tricky once you get into gardening, man, It's you know
you're hooked so maybe you're wise to stay away.
Well. My daughter has been bugging my
wife to let her do some gardening, so I might have to
maybe put some boxes out for herthis summer.
My wife is. Growing flowers in the box that
(43:53):
my daughter would love to grow plants in.
So maybe that will be a project this summer.
Good chance for us to bond. Yeah.
It's a it's a great activity to do together.
It's really fun and it's just, it's wonderful to see all the
life stages right. We're not so dissimilar.
So it's, it's really exciting tobe able to like really see from
a little baby all the way up into a full on tomato plant what
(44:17):
that process looks like. So I, I highly encourage it.
And that's the. Process of aging well, you know,
we talk in this podcast that aging well begins at birth,
probably more like conception, maybe even before conception.
But you know, it's it's a lifelong process.
It's not about suddenly I'm now 60 or 70 or 80.
I got to start thinking about how am I aging?
(44:37):
You know, we got to do it early on.
And you've brought up a lot of those topics throughout today's
conversation that, you know, we can be thinking about these
things from early on. We need to be planning.
And when we hit those milestone periods as markers in life, we
just got to, you know, hit them with gusto and, you know, with
purpose. And I think you're doing a
wonderful job of kind of puttingpurpose into this whole process
(45:00):
of aging well. Oh, thank.
You, Jeff, I, I really don't seeit as aging.
I just see it to your point as living.
So I think if everybody can, youknow, embrace what this can look
like in their own lives, you know, we're all going to be so
much better for it. And if we can just bring a
little bit of that to those who we serve at tender care, then I,
(45:23):
you know, I'm a happy, I'm a happy camper.
So so I'm definitely happy to bepart of this conversation and
excited for more families to seeit through that lens.
We would all be better off and better served.
And so what's? Next for you and Tender Care,
are there any upcoming innovations or you mentioned the
summer project, but any other projects that you're excited
(45:44):
about? Well, I'll give you one at work
and one at home. We are about a month away from
having one more little one join us in our family and I have just
entered into the third trimester.
So we are we are actively going to be bringing another member of
the family in who will be one day aging well with us.
(46:04):
So I'm very excited about that. And then at 10, thank you so
much at Tender Care. You know, you mentioned the need
for something like Angie's List.We're so excited.
We have already opened up, you know, a number of different
local trusted marketplaces across the East Coast for
families who are actively looking for services for family
(46:27):
members who are aging. And we're going to be expanding
across the country, so a lot of activity at Tender Care over the
next year as we start to offer, you know, this directory to
everyone, not just the East Coast.
So a lot of work and planning have gone into that to make this
available for everyone. So keep your eye on, keep your
(46:49):
eye on us because by the end of 2026, we're going to be
available for families looking for any kinds of services all
across the country. I'm excited.
For that, because I'm on the West Coast, so we're we're.
Coming for you and I'm not getting.
Any younger SO. Amen to that.
It's a good thing. So how can?
Our viewers and our listeners connect with you and tender
(47:10):
care. Oh.
Well, first, I'm always open to experiences, you know, new, new
perspectives. And so you can find me on
LinkedIn under Shawna Sweeney. But to try out our tools and
services, there is a totally free app that you can download
on the App Store. Just look up Tendercare.
(47:32):
And then if you want to learn more about us and all kinds of
different resources and tools, you can actually find us on our
website, trytendercare.com or follow along with us on social
media. Find us on Instagram at Try
Tendercare and come be part of our community.
We would love to have you, wouldlove to have your voice and we'd
(47:53):
love to help in any way that we can.
And we'll have links. To all that in the description
notes, fantastic. You have a Facebook page.
I mean you're a, you're a far more meta executive.
We do have. A Facebook page as well.
Try Tendercare. We're most active on Instagram,
which is owned by Facebook. So to your point, I have, I
have, I have definitely built out on the platform, but you can
(48:13):
find us under both Facebook and Instagram.
I'm sure you have a little. Bit better sense of how to use
social media than me, you know? I don't know, maybe, but I often
find, I often find those who arebuilding community and are out
there, they how to use these tools best for their community.
But yes, I do come from a background in which I really
think about how do you create those spaces online for people
(48:36):
to gather and to meet each otherand really connect.
It's probably the best part of my job, which is really watching
the tender, like the tender carecommunity grow and start to make
friends and connect with one another and start to meet up
with each other offline and share their experiences
together. That's the best part of my day,
(48:57):
when we realize that we have been responsible for bringing
different people together to make this journey a little
easier for them. Was there anything?
We missed in today's conversation that we need to
share, I think. You got it.
I think you got it. No, just come check us out.
We're so excited. We love the feedback.
And if you've got any great ideas for new tools or things
(49:18):
that you wish someone would go ahead and build for your family,
drop us a line. You can find us on the website
and our entire team usually getsback within less than a day, and
that's including our engineers. That's including and our
designers and our product leads.So there is a real opportunity
to, if you want something come to us and chances are we can
(49:41):
make it happen for you. What's the?
The line from the movie, if you if you build it, they will come.
Yeah, that's the opposite. Now if if you come, we will
build it if you go. Exactly.
Exactly. Well, this has.
Been a really, really great conversation and I am so excited
for the the tools and the opportunities that are coming
(50:04):
out there for people who have aging parents and they're aging
themselves and, you know, need to somehow connect to just have
better care for themselves and for others.
And so I love what you're doing.Just keep doing it and just keep
aging well and keep helping people age well and living well.
There we go. Thank you so much.
I really appreciate it. You're welcome.
(50:27):
Thank you for listening. I hope you benefited from
today's podcast and until next time, keep aging well.
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