45 Forward #240 – Ask Early. Age Better. Beating the Barrier to Aging Well. - 45 Forward

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's it's just fascinating to me the resiliency that people had.
Seventy five percent of the people that we talked to
grew up with no power, with no election, you know,
no electricity half the time, no running water, bathrooms outside
of it's a rural area. And the one thing they
all have in common is nobody complained that. There's not

(00:24):
one iota of complaining about So I mean my tolerance,
this is like my tolerance level of young people complaining
about stuff is extremely low. Shallow. Yeah, yeah, so.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
It Hello everyone, this is Ron Roell, the host of
forty five Forward. They all love good storytellers, and the
best storytellers are the ones with the most to tell.
American seniors who have already lived long lives, but our
older generations often don't get a chance to tell their stories.

(01:01):
In fact, they're not even asked. In today's episode, I'll
be talking with Jack Yorke, whose mission is to change
all that. Jack has been immersed in the senior living
world for more than twenty five years, and he is
the founder and chief storyteller of Tailgate Now. He spends
his days crisscrossing the country capturing the amazing often untold
personal stories of seniors, including those of our oldest old

(01:24):
one hundred year olds, our nation centenarians, through a project
he calls Vintage Voices. The story of Jack and Tailgate
is in a more amazing, heartfelt story in itself, and
today I'm privileged to share this story with you. So
now let's meet jack yorke Jack. Welcome to the show.

Speaker 1 (01:42):
All right, thanks Ron for having me on. I love
your whole tagline of making the second half of life
better than the first. That's that's awesome.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
Yeah, and you've done that. You've had multiple parts of
your life, so let's start with that a little bit. Jackson,
give us well. During the course of the of the
our conversation, we'll talk about a lot of your different pivots,
but just give us a sense. And I know you
started out with the tech industry, you know, I guess

(02:13):
selling semiconductors, and then you made a dramatic shift. Tell
us about that beginning, and you're a bit about your
origin story.

Speaker 1 (02:21):
Had a a you know, fairly conventional I guess, you know,
corporate climbing life that I was in my mid twenties,
started working in the Silica Valley for a company called Siliconics.
That was in in as you said, in the semiconductor industry,
and I uh, people in the senior living world have

(02:41):
assumed I'm a tech guy, but I was always I
was just a good sales and marketing guy in the
in the in that in that technology world, and just
never thinking of it as it was a good career,
good you know, you check all the boxes of of
what you're supposed to be doing, a great family and
and all that stuff, and never thinking of it as

(03:03):
a business. A really good friend of mine, Leslie Sweeney,
in nineteen ninety eight, all of a sudden, that's a
long that's a long time ago, she had the idea
to donate some computers to a local assisted living community
in California. And again, it was never an idea for

(03:23):
a business. It was just she just noticed that it
looked like a lot of the people in this community
that she was pretty close to geographically that were pretty
lonely or they said, just seem kind of bored, and
so we just just donated some computers. She worked with
the residents for a year and it was just kind
of a cool thing to do, and then a very

(03:45):
spiritual thing happened that my mom. We were having an
eighty the surprise birthday party from my mom in nineteen
ninety eight, and towards the end of the party, she
started not feeling the little great, you know, just as
the party was winding out, she was getting a little dizzy.
So we just had a precautionary calling ambulance. They come
out and they look at her and that not overly concerned,

(04:07):
but that well, maybe we should take her to the
hospital just to be safe. And it turned out that
she you know, this is such a joyful story, but
it sounds so sad when you say that she wound
up having a massive stroke in the ambulance on the
way of the hospital and died the next morning. But

(04:28):
it was her spirit was telling me to do something
with my life that had purpose and had meaning, and
it was kind of her last gift to me. And
so without having any any idea, I mean, I'd worked
for the same company for almost fifteen sixteen years, so
I just completely jumped off a cliff to start a
company called It's Never Too Late with Leslie and my

(04:51):
and my brother Tom and had you know, usually people
start companies, they have some semblance of a you know,
you know, a skill set in whatever that industry is.
We we had no idea on any level of what
we were doing, which in some ways was bad and
maybe some ways was good. But that was the whole

(05:11):
inception of Iron two l and, which was all about
bringing technology to older adults. And that's kind of how
the whole major pivot happened and how everything else since
then has followed.

Speaker 2 (05:22):
Yeah, so then you decided that on the name is
never too late with Is that for you or.

Speaker 1 (05:28):
For Yeah, it was because it was all about it
was all about just you know, it's it's nineteen ninety nine,
so the whole computing you know, Windows had just been
out for a while. I mean, the whole computing world
in general was just starting much less the uh you know,
much less older adults, much less nursing now, it was

(05:48):
much less dementia. I mean, we were ahead of the
curve on pretty much every level. But it was just
you know, with just observationally is really kind of how
the whole idea started. Observationally, you go into a senior
living community and you'd see these you know, none of
this is meant to say anything demeaning about the incredibly

(06:12):
dedicated staff that work in senior living. But you know,
you go back to nineteen ninety nine and you have
these people that are you know, the residents that are
you know, teachers and welders and doctors and lawyers and
whatever the heck their their life was. They had lived
completely rich lives and you'd look at the you know,

(06:34):
at what then was called activity programming, and it was
it was just so demeaning to people that had lived
such full lives. And again it's not not at all
a reflection of the of the people that worked the
internest that just didn't have any tools. So you know,
you have rooms full of you know, old VHS tapes
and you're, you know, you're just you're just trying to

(06:55):
keep people. It was, it was, there was just nothing,
it was nothing really aging about it, and it just
seemed like there's got to be a better way to
do this. And that was That's just kind of how
it started. The fact that we didn't know the industry,
the fact that we didn't know that we didn't know
what we were doing, it made us just ask questions

(07:17):
of people. And there were so many people along the
road that really helped guide the product development. They saw
that our hearts were in the right place, and and
it was just it was just really a you know,
just kind of an organic beginning to a company in
a in an industry that was starting to look at computing,

(07:38):
but only through the lens of medical records and clinical applications.
So we were, you know, you go to a conference,
we were like out in left field doing all this
crazy stuff. So we were way ahead of a curve.
And like I said, it was either it was probably
to our benefit that we had no idea what we
were what we were talking about.

Speaker 2 (07:58):
Yeah, well it's sometimes you're right, it's good not to know.

Speaker 1 (08:01):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 (08:03):
But yeah, so of course I love your story because
my show is forty five forward, Yeah, right, right right.
It focuses on the fact that it is never too late,
you know, And and many of my guests Jack, you know,
have have had multiple careers, you know, after middle age,
and I think that's you know, that's the point of
it is that you can keep growing and learning things.

(08:23):
And I mean we've gone through some tremendous changes. I mean,
as I think back to my early days as a
writer as a journalist, I'm like a little stunned I'm like, okay,
so we were using typewriters and I was making copies
using carbon paper.

Speaker 1 (08:40):
I was, you know it is it's so, you know,
I want to do a you know, one of my
many off the wall ideas. I'd love to do some
kind of a contest of twenty five year olds to
give them a street and Smith's map guide and tell
them how and they kind of leave the cell phone

(09:00):
home and like drive from you give them an address
and they got to figure out how to get there.
I mean, it's a there's and you know that's what's
obviously we're gonna get into the Honeyrolds. You know, you
you get into the world of folks that are centinarians,
and you get into slide rules, and you know, it's sure,
it's just kind of one step back, but it's the
same thing. It's just people's aversion to change and doing

(09:23):
things differently and and kind of being on the edge
to to do it right.

Speaker 2 (09:27):
Yeah. So we'll talk about a lot of things, but
I want to just talk a little bit more about
it's never too late and uh, you know which you
know now I guess is life loop right, that's it's yeah,
And about so just a little bit about how how
you how you do this? How do you go into communities?
What sort of things do you do with them? And
and how do you because you do a lot of things.

Speaker 1 (09:49):
Yeah, it's kind of like Iron two L and it's
it's now you know, to my to my delight, it's
a it's a it's a much it's become a much
more sophisticated, broader product. It's part of a company called
life Loop and it was but like I said before,
the ion Tel, the conception was it was just trying

(10:10):
to bring two older adults that did not kind of
a combination of they didn't have a lot of computer experience,
but they also were dealing with different levels of physical
or cognitive decline. How do you bring them the same
kind of things that we get used to with the computer.
It's it really I don't know. I don't think it
was that that that complicated of an idea, just through

(10:35):
we were way ahead of the curve with touch screen.
So it's touchscreen technology and to try to let people
be able to get to without having to really know
how to use a computer that just through the touch
screen and well laid out content, they could get to
just sections based of travel and spirituality and games and

(10:59):
you know, whatever they want, just whatever. You know, what
do we do? We want to listen to music, we
want to I always use the analogy I'm a big
I'm a big Springsteen guy. And it's not like when
I hit eighty, I'm gonna all of a sudden want
the carpenters. You know, you just we all have our
passions right that our bodies change. We may change a
little physically or cognitalant, we don't change the We don't

(11:22):
lose the thirst to stay connected and engage with things
that are meaningful. So Iantua is just all about trying
to bring that what was relevant to that person and
make it easy either for them to get to individually
or for an activity professional to be able to guide
their way to the content in a group context. And

(11:43):
it took, and it took forever to take off. The
first ten years of the company was more just trying
to get people to open up to the ideas of
computers and residents and dementia more than you're selling against
a competitor. Was just trying to change mindsets and and
I'm super proud of the fact that I think we
helped did uh you know, help we helped move the

(12:04):
needle of just kind of that common sense, the equation
that you know what, everybody should have access to the
same kind of things that we take for granted with technology.

Speaker 2 (12:15):
Yeah, and I love this approach because I mean it
relates to actually who's using it and why are they
using it? So, you know, I've been involved, you know,
with ARP and a lot of advocacy groups for seniors,
and you know, people talking, well, how do we teach
people seniors that use technology? Well, the same way we
teach anybody about things like like why is why is

(12:36):
this relevant to you? Why would you use it? You know,
what do you need it for? Not just oh well
I'll learn how to use all these things and program
and so forth. You know. So you're you're you know,
you're just the fact that you you know, it's it's well,
in some ways, it's customer driven. You're looking at who
is the customer here? It's it's it's the senior and

(12:56):
why do they need it? And and also you know,
breaking through this myth of like oh well, no, seniors,
they can't use it. You know, used to paper and
pencils and stuff like that and no, you know, but
you you needed your approach of really paying attention to them.

Speaker 1 (13:12):
In the early days and that this is obviously dramatically change,
but in the early days, and this is you know,
it kind of reminds me. It reminds me. It reminds
me so viscerally of a moment I had when I
was a kid and where I was a teenager, late teens,
early you know, early twenties, think that I was working
for my dad, and my dad was a civil engineer,

(13:33):
and I remember this guy coming in with a Texas
instrument computer and my dad's a total slide roll guy,
you know, you know, grew up with that, and he
was so resistant to this calculator, even though it was
so I'm just sit there looking at the outs. I go, Dad,
that seems to be a lot easier than that thing
that you have. And I think a lot of the

(13:55):
early resistance to iron two L and it was almost subconscious,
I think, But the a person that had done a
job a certain way for twenty years, all of a sudden,
here's this guy showing up that has no knowledge of
senior living and no knowledge of the you know, intricacies
of aging and dementia, just saying, you know it, it's

(14:15):
a lot easier just to you know, touch this. You know,
if you're showing, if you've got a resident who you've
built this activity about going to France and the person
wants to go to Germany, instead of having to completely
redo your whole day, just touch this button instead of
that button. It's a heck of a lot easier than
all the work you've done. But there was such resistance

(14:36):
because it was just a different way for people to
do their job. And so it you know, you'd like
anything else, you have people that are willing to take
a risk, a little bit of early adopters, a whole
bunch of people that were so beneficial to us early on,
And it took a lot of years, but it ultimately
wound up being, you know, succeeding beyond my wildest and

(15:00):
I'm Leslie and my unfortunately my brother died the other
founder early on. So it was a tough first ten
years of company, but wound up being like I said,
very successful.

Speaker 2 (15:11):
Yeah, but ten years. I mean so persistence is a
lot of it too. I mean, nobody likes change.

Speaker 1 (15:18):
It's it's funny. I don't want to get off on
a tangent, but a lot of why I talk a
lot to people, to young people that are entrepreneurs starting businesses,
and as much as anything else, the reason that I
in two L succeeded was when I was twenty five,
I started saving twenty ten between ten and twenty percent.

(15:42):
I would save of what I made and put it
into no load mutual funds and just every month, put
money in every month. And I'm forty and it got
too close to a million dollars and that's what we
used to launch I in two L. Every dime went away,
but I didn't have have to go look for until

(16:02):
about ten years later. I didn't have to go look
for any other capital and didn't have to answer to
anybody else. So I'm I'm a firm belief. You know,
I've been more the like Jimmy Stewart model of starting
a company. But half the people I talk to you
don't even know who Jimmy Stewart is ordered to come
up with you with a new analogy. But it was,
you know, I think part of it just growing up

(16:24):
with depression area. You know, air of parents than you know.
You just are You're conservative and you save money and
that's kind of how the whole thing happened from a
financial standpoint, right right.

Speaker 2 (16:37):
Okay, So we're going to take a quick break jack Folks.
When we come back, when we're talking much more with
jack Yorke, the founder of Tailgate. So don't go anywhere.

Speaker 3 (16:47):
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(17:09):
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Speaker 2 (17:31):
Welcome back, folks, to forty five Forward. This is your host,
Ron Rowell, and we're talking today with jack Yorke, the
founder of Tailgate, whose mission is to capture and tell
the stories of our best storytellers, America's seniors. So before
the break, we were talking about Dak's earlier career with
It's Never Too Late and how I want to now

(17:54):
get into how you developed and moved into Tailgate. How
did this transition take place.

Speaker 1 (18:02):
Yeah, when so as I and two L got bigger,
one of the you know, I did a lot. I could.
I could spend a lot of time talking about mistakes
that I made, and you know, as any entrepreneur can
can tell you that. But the one thing I did,
I think do well was I was very self aware
of what, you know, what I was good at when

(18:23):
I was not good at. And I think I was
a good CEO for a company of you know, ten,
fifteen twenty people. As I in two L got larger,
you know, and more successful, I knew that I wasn't
the right CEO to kind of take it to the
next level. Didn't I didn't lose the passion for the product,
But it just takes a different skill set to kind

(18:44):
of go from point, you know, from point B to
point C. And I think a lot of people are
their egos get in the way of letting go a
little bit. And so as the year before COVID, I
was trying to do some things that were more you know,
almost more kind of public. And I was still passionate,

(19:04):
still working for Ryan two out, but I did I
wanted to kind of get out of the operational role
and just do more really just more out in the
field ethics, living communities and this that, and so we
we came up with the idea I turned sixty. This
is five and a half years ago. I turned sixty,
and I in twell turned twenty, and so we invented

(19:26):
this thing called the sixty twenty Tour that I drove
around at a van with go pro cameras, which is
what I'm doing now. We'll get to that later, but
we it was it was really like carpool karaoke. We
couldn't call it that from a license at stepoint, so
we called it cruising and croonin. But I would we
would just go to communities and we would get resonance

(19:47):
to drive around, you know, drive around the neighborhood with me,
and we'd sing songs and and just you know, just
have really kind of a just wherever, wherever the conversation
would go would go. And it was the first time
I'm you know, my I in twel career. Not that
this is a bad thing, but I would, you know,
I'd lug in a demo unit and I'm trying to

(20:08):
talk to the executive director and the therapists and the
activity world from to sell the product and show what
it was, you know, say hello to the residents, and
but I didn't really interact with them. And then, you know,
then you leave and you go to the next community,
and all of a sudden, with the sixty twenty tour,
it was really the first time that I really had
had more deeper relations or conversations with the residents. And

(20:30):
it was like, the guys people are just so cool
and they're so thirsty to be heard, and that was
kind of the the It just kind of planted the
seed of there's got to be a bigger and better
way to do this, and then when COVID hit, it was,
you know, it's kind of it was kind of odd

(20:51):
because everything I in Twell was about was really so
ideal for cod because it was all about trying to
connect residents to the outside world, to their families, to
you know, to what mattered to them. And so, you know,
just in blunt capitalistic terms, COVID probably tripled the valuation

(21:16):
of I N two L and all of a sudden,
a lot of a lot of of private equity companies
were interested in it. And it really it really wasn't
that we were necessarily looking to sell the company, but
it was It's kind of and it was like, well,
maybe maybe this is the right time to do that,
and so we we were acquired through a private equity company,

(21:36):
became part of a company Life Loop, and and I'm
still involved with it. I love what it's turned into.
Like I said earlier on It's It's it's the the
the infusion of capital and of life Loop has allowed
the product to become a lot broader, and it's now
tied into AI and doing all. I mean, it's it's
totally thriving. But uh, but that allowed me to my

(22:02):
I never lost the passion for Iyan twelve, but I
really felt like, almost like when I started I and twelve.
It sounds kind of hokey, but it's true that it
really felt like a calling to me. When I just
saw the isolation and how technology was just leaving people behind,
I just felt the same way. I had kind of
the same feeling with Tailgate that or just in general,

(22:23):
that just a calling to do a deeper job of
trying to capture the stories of some of these folks.
And so the initial launch of Tailgate was a forty
two foot trailer that we had and that's kind of
how the name tailgate came because it was ta it's

(22:43):
spelled ta l e because you're capturing stories. But it
was initially a lot of tailgate parties that we had
this forty two foot trailer that we'd bring all over
the country and we built a recording studio inside the trailer,
and so we'd show up at a community and have
a whole of activities and the tailgate party, and then
we'd be capturing stories on the inside. And I just

(23:06):
I fell in love with doing it. But I also felt.

Speaker 4 (23:09):
Like the the the the sanctity of capturing the stories
was getting lost in this big party, and it really
wasn't all about the party.

Speaker 1 (23:22):
And it was also the other, the other practical side
of it is that everybody else in the company, like
had lives back at home and they wanted I was
pretty comfortable being on the road all the time, and
so there was a little bit of like, you know what,
what's a different way to do this, And so that's
kind of what it's evolved to now. But that's how
it started, and and it was the same. It's it's almos.

(23:43):
I mean, really, the patron saint of me is probably
Leonardo DiCaprio and catch me if you can, because now
I'm a you know, now I'm a documentary film producer,
and before I was a tech entrepreneur, both of which
I had appo no business doing. But you you know,
you just jump in and figure stuff out and all

(24:05):
of a sudden you're you know, you start making a work.

Speaker 2 (24:07):
Yeah, So what did you have a moment when when
you just really realize, like, wow, people really have a
thirst to tell stories and as they've told me before,
sort of uplifting stories. There are stories of their lives
and no one was asking them. Was there sort of
an epiphany.

Speaker 1 (24:27):
Part of it for me? You know, this is also
going back to the idea of starting it is that
when I was a kid, I you know, and I
was talking to this before. With my dad and like
the latter part of high school or the part of college,
I worked for my dad and in the summers and
so we would drive every day back and forth. We

(24:47):
would drive about thirty minutes both ways, and after he died,
it just it kind of you know, it's the classic
story that you find out these things that your parents
did after they die. So with my dad, had you know,
I knew about his you know, I knew he had
been a part of World War Two. I knew, you know,
just very rudimentary about what he did. And I found

(25:10):
out after god, all this really you know, incredibly cool
stuff that he did that I you know, I sat
there in the car with him, you know, not, you know,
not one day, you know, I asked, you know, we
talk all day about the Dodgers, about Nebraska Cornhusker football,
you know, about this stuff that with you know, with
the father son conversations. But I never asked him. You know,
what was it like being a twenty year old kid

(25:33):
with a civil engineering degree and all of a sudden
you're on a plane going to India to build landing
strips in this thing called the Burma Road. And so
I that always bothered me. And so I think part
of the you know, almost my subconsciousness with Tailgate is
that every every person's story we capture is kind of

(25:55):
a you know, almost a subconscious tribute to my father,
whose story you know, you know, I never I never
did capture. But you know, going back to your question,
I don't think it was like a like a moment,
It just it was like a daily occurrence well, actually,
you know what, as I think about, there was I
would say a moment. There was two or three times

(26:18):
where people would come up to me after an interview
and say how much the interview, how much it meant
to them, And one one guy in particular, it's funny,
I haven't thought about this forever, and just your question
triggered it for me. I was in a really cool
community called C. C. Young outside of Dallas, Texas, and

(26:39):
did the interview in the trailer and this guy, you know,
I'm leaving the building and we had spent maybe a
half hour with four or five different residents. This guy
was one of them, and this real, you know, tall guy,
and he kind of waves me to come upstairs. Beautiful community.
He waves me to come upstairs to say goodbye to him,
and I and I go up to him and and
I'm just say goodbye, and he just he looked me

(27:01):
in the eye and just said, you know, you made
me feel relevant today and I don't always feel relevant.
And it hit me, you know, just that comment hit
me that you know this is more important then maybe
I'm thinking it is. And then I would hear people
say this has happened a lot and when it first

(27:25):
you know, when when I first heard it, it made
me feel really good, and as time has gone, it's
actually made me feel a little more sad than good.
And that is people that have said that in the
drives that we do, which we'll talk about in a
few minutes, but you'll wind up talk you know, driving
somebody around capturing their story and the personal again will

(27:46):
tell you that it's the most meaningful thing that they've
done in the last year. And when I first heard that,
it was, wow, that is really cool. And then it's
just like, you know that that's a sad thing that
they're not And I think it's just it's not that
it's me, and it's not that it's fan fair. I
just think that it's somebody is is authentically taking the

(28:09):
time to ask questions of somebody that hasn't that's lived
a full life, yeah, and is rarely asked those questions.

Speaker 2 (28:19):
Yeah, you know, it's interesting Jack, as you're talking, I'm
thinking back to my childhood too, and and also and
and you know, I know we're now into tailgate, but
but going back to life loop. To me, there is
sort of a life loop to this. So you know,
you think about being a kid. And what's the most
important thing that for kids is for them to feel

(28:40):
listened to, you know, and and you know the adults
are in their own world doing this, and so there's
this I think this long like I just want to
be listened to, and I think that sort of carries
through a lot of life. And now you're at the
end of your life loop ord or further down the road,
and again, you know, you've got this full life and
no one listening. We're not you and I have talked

(29:02):
about this before. We're not a society of listeners or talkers,
which is okay, but what people wanted frequently is to
be listened to, because that what makes you relevant.

Speaker 1 (29:14):
Yeah, you know, it's it's talkers. And it's also you know,
we're a society of just sucked into our little reality,
into a cell phone. And and again this is something
we can talk about later, but it's a it's you know,
a passion of mine is trying to put together this
isolation of the older adults paired with these high school

(29:37):
students who were so you know, they have their own
version of loneliness, which is just it's just wrapped in
a different box and it and just looking at at
just what and we can talk about that later about
about when about some of the things that have really
struck me as as changes that I think that's much

(29:59):
change is just I think things that senior living communities can
do to enhance this whole issue or bring to light
this whole issue.

Speaker 2 (30:11):
Yeah, yeah, so Jack, we're going to take another quick break,
but folks, we have a lot more to talk about,
so don't go away. We'll be talking much more with
Jack Yorck, the founder of Tailgate, and now we'll get
a transition to his stories about how he actually collects
these stories. So we'll be right back.

Speaker 5 (30:31):
Do you like what you're hearing? Well, we've got plenty
more where that came from. Head over to forty five
forward dot org, where you'll find a full archive of
over two hundred episodes of the forty five Forward podcast,
all hosted by Ron. Each week, Ron talks with fascinating guests, experts, advocates,

(30:56):
and everyday folks, sharing insights and stories to help you
live a better, fuller life in your second half. We
cover everything from.

Speaker 6 (31:06):
Health and care giving to careers, relationships, and finding purpose.
Whatever helps you move forward with clarity and confidence. That's
forty five Forward dot org. Check it out and keep
moving forward forty five Forward.

Speaker 2 (31:33):
Welcome back, folks to forty five Forward. I'm Ron Roell,
your host once again. We're talking to Jack Yorck, the
founder of Tailgate, and about his passion for telling the
stories of seniors really is the backbone of our of
our society and our culture. So Jack, let's get into
a little bit more about how you do this. I

(31:53):
know that you've about how you do your interviews. I've
seen some of your interviews where you're actually interviewing folks
in the car. I found fascinating and remind me a
little bit of that you know, that Jerry Seinfeld bit,
you know, coffee in the car with comedians, you know. Yeah, yeah,
but I like your version better.

Speaker 1 (32:11):
Yeah yeah. Well, I mean there's a couple like the
Tailgate there. There's a couple of different things that we're doing,
and one of them is we do really cool documentaries
and why don't we can talk abou that in a minute.
And then we're also we have a great author in
our staff. Her name is Aubrey Road, and she's writing

(32:31):
a book about some of these people that we meet
along the way. So, I mean, everything we're generically doing
is tied to just elevating aging and as a second
tier way kind of elevating senior living and trying to
kind of tweak that. But as far as the what
a lot of people see is the uh the Vintage Voices,

(32:52):
what we call Vintage Voice. It's a partnered partnership between
Tailgate and the company called Dash Media that does great
work with social media and see living. And so that's
where I do a lot of the you know, a
lot of the interviews in the car there there there,
I think everybody's everybody who's a parent has experienced kind
of the how you can get your kids to say

(33:14):
things in a car that you know, you can just
you can have good conversation in a car. So there
is something oddly uh comfortable about, you know, about just
talking while you're driving. So if you look at the
channel we've put together with this partnership, the Vintage Voices,
it's called Vintage Voices one hundred, which you can see

(33:38):
on on Instagram and YouTube all that stuff. But I
but I you know, I guess just we can get
to that more of that in the minute. But in
terms of just your question. You know, I think it's
it's just it's just interesting to me. You know, it's
funny because people will say people will I just I

(33:59):
laugh my rear sometimes because people will say that they
really appreciate my work and they say it like how
you would talk to somebody who who's digging wells in
you know, in in the you know, in Africa, like
like I mean, I it's just it's I've always been
a history person. I've always very enjoyed history, and I'm

(34:20):
fascinated to just see, you know, what happens from generation generation.
So for me, it's just it's just curiosity to just
try to put myself in that person's head of what
their life was like. And then I think that people
they have a good radar of authenticity and they see

(34:43):
that I'm authentic, right and the fact that I'm a stranger,
I think makes it a lot easier sometimes to open up.
And so it's it's interesting, and you know this totally.
I think this next comment fits with the whole premise
of what you're doing. Ron is then I honestly, I

(35:03):
never really felt to be to be brutally honest, I
never felt like I was a very good CEO. At
I twelve, I was a good sales guy, but I
really wasn't very good CEO. But I really feel like
I'm good at interviewing and and and and I think
it's a to the point of your show. It's a
skill set that I never would have ever thought that

(35:26):
I had, that I don't even tap into till my
early sixties. And and it's and it's turning out to
be something I thoroughly enjoy, you know, I think that
I'm good at and I've surrounded myself with phenomenal with
the documentaries that we do, phenomenal team of editors and
uh and videographers that really make the conversations that we

(35:50):
have come to life. But it's really it, you know,
I think that I think what anybody's good at doing
doesn't seem that hard. Like for me, I really enjoy
public speaking and getting in front of you know, get
in front of groups of people and talk about these
lessons I'm learning and this is that. And so like
when you hear how the terror that public speaking strikes

(36:14):
inside of people, I don't get it. But man, throw
me a pipe wrench with a with a toilet overflowing
and that's when I get terrified. I have no idea
what dude, So I think, you know, we all kind
of have our mojo of what we do. But to me,
I think, again, just going back to your question, it's
just being genuinely curious about a person's whatever the topic is,

(36:39):
and then just shut up and let them, let them
run with it.

Speaker 2 (36:43):
Yeah, I think you're right, Jack. I think I think
people detect your curiosity. It's a genuine curiosity. You're just
interested in their lives. You're listening to them, and you know,
I think especially with older people, you know, they've lived
a long time and they can pick up, you know, things,
they can sense things, you know, because they've their brain

(37:03):
is is you know, a similating a lot of experiences,
and they can tell very quickly. This guy is for real,
and he's generally interested, and he's not he's not threatening
to me, he's not trying to do he's not trying
to coerce me get something out of me. He's genuinely
curious and he wants to know what was my name?

Speaker 1 (37:18):
Yeah, like this guy. There's a guy, a guy in
Iowa that worked for forty five mill forty five years
at General Mills and making cereal, and I just thought
that was I thought that was fascinating. Like, you know,
it's easy to stereotype, like, you know what a that's
that's kind of must have been kind of a boring job,

(37:39):
you know, you the guy starts talking about it, he
was doing all kinds of stuff and that was that's
his his identity is General Mills and the stuff that
he was doing to improve cereal, and it, uh, you know,
from the outside it could seem like a simple thing
to him. That was his life for forty five years,

(38:00):
and you want to you want to honor it and
let him talk about it. And the guy hadn't talked
about it for probably you know, you know, he was
a hundred and one and there is a hundred one
and the buddies that he worked with are all gone.
So I mean there's a lot of yeah, a lot
of psychological kind of dynamics to some of these conversations
that I think. You don't you don't really think of

(38:22):
you just have the conversation. But there's a The more
I do it, the more I realize it really is
tappened into something a lot deeper than I originally thought.

Speaker 2 (38:30):
Yeah, yeah, I think that we just don't think about
the fact that, you know, there is loss in life.
You know, you lose your family, your friends, they move away,
they pass away, but but your need to connect is
still there, you know, and and you know, so I
think that as you pointed at earlier, COVID really pushed this,
you know, triggered this realization like, oh wow, people are

(38:52):
really lonely. They need to connect. But but this does
it in the more, you know, I don't know. Yeah, well,
I think it's nice that you you know, you have
you tailgate for for Roman numeral for joy, which is
the joy aspect of it, that this is joyful. I mean, yeah,
there's a certain wistfulness about it, it's true. But the

(39:15):
ability for people to do this I think is really
important to them. Any any other you mentioned this guy
from Gentlem Mills, any other stories that have surprised you
or just sort of stuck with you that you know,
you've done so many. I know it's hard.

Speaker 1 (39:28):
Yeah, you know, I think the you know, let me
answer kind of both specifically and generically. Specifically, you know,
I've talked to a handful of World War Two vets
that and those stories are just fascinating, but just a
couple of months ago. Like you, I'm talking about one
hundred You like, the documentaries that we do are very

(39:50):
planned and there's a real you know, there's a whole
story that we're putting together and plotting, and that's a
very structured process. The Vintage Voice one hundred year old visits,
you just show up. You don't know what's going to happen.
But anyway, So I've had a lot of these, a
lot of the World War two vets, and all of
a sudden, a couple of months ago, a guy gets

(40:10):
in just a thick German accent, and he grew up
he grew up in Germany as a kid, and he
had to spend thirty minutes every morning singing praise songs
to Hitler Wow. And then and that night he's running
between his house and a bomb shelter, you know, right

(40:33):
in the middle of everything. But you think about that stuff,
you know, I think you you you think about that
as being ancient history. And then you're just sitting, you know,
in the car, right next to somebody. You know, you
each got your cup of coffee, and it's a person
that just lived it. So I think that there's you know,

(40:57):
it's almost like, you know, it's I could spend you know,
fourteen of your episodes talking about the individual stories there
there there just is it's it's just fascinating to me,
the resiliency that people had. Seventy five percent of the
people that we talked to grew up with no power,

(41:20):
with no election, you know, no electricity half the time,
no running water, bathrooms outside of it's a rural area.
And the one thing they all have in common is
nobody complained that. There's not one iota of complaining about So.
I mean, I my tolerance, I you know, this is
like my tolerance level of young people complaining about stuff

(41:42):
is extremely low. Gallow, Yeah, yeah, so it uh but
I do I I you know, honestly, ron I I
go to bed at night, I can't. I can't tell
you how the spiritual impact these people have on me.
And it just I try to really at the end

(42:03):
of the day just spend some time with the lights
out and nothing and just think about who that person
was that I talked that day, and it is it
is you know, it sounds hokey to say it, but
it is such an honor to capture this you know,
we just you have somebody's life on an SD card, right,

(42:26):
and you know, we do all the social media stuff
and it's getting you know, it's getting tens of thousands
of followers and it's got millions of views. And you know,
I don't mean to sound flippant, but that is so
irrelevant to me. The relevant to me, the relevance to
me what we're doing is that you you give that family.
Here's the story, you know, here's this. You know, we'll

(42:48):
edit the SD card, here's the story of your dad's life,
your grandpa's life. And my kids, you know, my kids
never met my dad, and and you know, you can
show a picture and it's great, but to listen, you know,
it's it's just the honor of doing this, the capturing.

(43:09):
And it's happened several several times where the person's died
and then we can we can get for the family,
here's the stuff you inevitably didn't know about your mom
or dad. So there is a I think I used
this for before. There's a sanctity to all of this,
and it's spirituality at all this that is just is

(43:31):
just it's it's hard to it's hard to.

Speaker 2 (43:34):
Convey Yeah, yeah, you know, you you you missed those opportunities.
You know, I think for a lot of us, you know,
after after college, you know, I came back and I
spent some time well after bad to school. It was
a little bit after but with my folks, when I
was working on an entrepreneurial project with one of my brothers.

(43:55):
And you know, at first, you know, you're like, here,
I am back home, you know, my parents. But now
you're both adults, and you know, interestingly, in some ways
the time was too short because I realized, well, now
I can really talk to my dad, you know. And
I remember, you know, you know, inviting him to lunch

(44:17):
one day and saying, you know, why why did you
make that decision? You know, why did you decide to
drop out of law school? And who was at Harvard
Law School? Why did you? You know, so things that
you know that that we miss because you know, we're
such a you know what mobile society. You know, we're
a society of movers, and we just keep moving and moving.

(44:39):
We don't get that time to connect. And so this
is an interesting you know, you know, dventure viewers. I
really appreciate the fact.

Speaker 1 (44:47):
That what's something you found out about your dad that
you that you had no idea.

Speaker 2 (44:53):
Well, I had no idea his his father was a lawyer,
very you know, successful lawyer, and and he could have
been a lawyer. So what I found out, I said,
why why didn't you want to go to law school?
What bothered you about the law? Because he's like your dad,
he turned out to be an engineer. And so he said, well,
I didn't like the fact that as a lawyer you

(45:16):
could argue two sides of the issue, one side and
the next. He said, like, either either one side is
right or not. You know, that's his engineering mind. So
he didn't you know, he didn't like that kind of
what to him was the sense of hypocrisy, you know,
in the profession. So but that he had never really
I had never really asked him about that, like why

(45:38):
you know and that, and I it made a lot
of sense knowing my dad's had a real sense of
deep ethical sense of fairness in life, you know. So
if it weren't for that lunch, though, I don't think
I really would have been able.

Speaker 1 (45:50):
To Yeah, yeah, after that. Well the other thing too,
is like you're in your not that it's this is
a bad thing. It's it's just reality. I think you
in your teens and twenties, you're kind of in your
own head. You know, you're just you're trying to figure
out your own stuff, so you don't you don't think
about the reflectiveness that you think about when you you know,
for me in kind of mid sixties, I do it.
It's kind of an eye This is was not planned

(46:12):
at all, but it's it's it's so relevant. Is that
we have the van. I drive around in this whole
vintage voice, hundred year old van. I drive around. It's
all wrapped and there's a great picture of my there's
of my dad in World War Two, and it's like
right where the gas cap is. It's like every time
I get gas, I'm like having a little silent Hey,

(46:32):
what's going on Dad. It's like whole little connection that
we have. But that, yeah, it's I mean, it is.
I think you know, a takeaway from this for people
is that you know it's a cliche, but just you know,
go it's so easy with goport. There's so many ways
to film things that there's just no excuse not to
do it. And you just you know, while your parents

(46:54):
are or even your kids, you know, you know, just
just take time to slow down and capture stuff and
you never regret it.

Speaker 2 (47:03):
Yeah, so we're just take one more quick break. I
still want to get into quite a bit of that
stuff with you, but we'll get in as much as
we can. So, folks, we're going to take one more
quick break. But don't go away because we have a
lot more to talk about in our last segment with
jack Yorke, the founder of Tailgate. So don't go anywhere.

Speaker 7 (47:25):
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(47:47):
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Because you're not alone on this path, and the help
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Speaker 2 (48:25):
And welcome back, folks to forty five forward when we're
talking today with jack Yorke, we've been covering a lot
of territory about how he is gathered and disseminated the
stories of America's seniors, terrific stories. A very interesting and
we're going to now just talk about you know, his
Vinca's Voices project talks about the lives of centenarians one

(48:49):
hundred year olds, and he had some interesting observations about
you know, because everyone says like, oh, well, what are
the secrets to living so long? And interesting observations that
have nothing to do with food and diet.

Speaker 1 (49:03):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, well the uh, you know one thing too,
I think this is this is like a good for
your listeners, a a good trivia bar statistic is that
there there's more people, you know, more centenarians, more people
over one hundred now than in the history of the

(49:23):
world combined. So that, I mean, that is that isn't crazy.
So it's definitely you know, and it's just with all
the medical advances obviously, it's it's not as much of
a novel it as before it you know, we talked
a little bit about this before that it's and there's
you know, there's really, you know, you look at something,
you know, like the blue zone, there's all that. You know.

(49:44):
I don't want to pretend to be a researcher. All
I'm talking about is just the anecdotal stuff I've seen.
But there has been no consistency at all when it
comes to diet, when it comes to you know, do
you ankoring? And there's there's people that have not had
a drink ever. There's somebody else that, you know, at

(50:05):
nine in the morning has a glass of bourbon every day.
Like there's no consisten is that? But the things that
have been consistent are I mean, faith has been like
ninety five percent consistent, that people having a very strong
connection with God, with you know, whatever their God is.

(50:26):
A few people have been you know, just kind of
vehemently not but that's still about ninety five percent. What's
been one hundred percent consistent, and it was It's interesting.
It's almost a couple of things. One of is it's
almost a feistiness of people. You know, obviously, anybody over
one hundred, most of them are gonna have some kind

(50:46):
of physical issues and so there are some things they
need help with, but they they begrudgingly take that help
they do. And it's interesting because I think a lot
of mindset, you know, for good reason, and whether it's
is an individual or a living community, is you try
to take every you try to do everything for people.

(51:06):
And I think that I walk away from this thinking
that's probably not the right answer, because people still, you know,
they they still want to try to use you know,
use their utensils. They still want to try to walk
as much as they can. So that was one thing.
Another thing is just a you know, very few people
that I've interviewed over one hundred are sitting around watching television.

(51:27):
There there is a a thirst of there's a curiosity
that stays there. People asking me about the cameras and
you know, what are we doing with all this stuff?
And it really is you know, that has been very interesting.
And the last thing, and this has been a great
thing for me to to look at in my in
my mid sixties, is just movement. Just very intentional people

(51:51):
trying to move realize, you know, not heavy exercise, not
some people do heavy exercise, but a lot of but
people just intentionally trying to walk as much as they
can and uh and and have consistent movement. But those
those three things have been pretty consistent, but it it
you know, the personalities, the we you know have Oh,

(52:12):
I'll just say a couple of things like you you
kind of you kind of have this this this sense
of puritanism that you know is not really relevant. But
there was one guy that was ninety it was one
hundred and two and he was talking about his wife
died when he was seventy five and uh and so
it was like, that must have been hard. How did

(52:33):
you excuse me eighty five? He wiped time he was
eighty five. I was like, well, how did you it
must have been you know, how did you deal with that?
What was your you know, what what was it like?
And he was like, well, luckily, six months later I
met a short redhead and she was a sexual dynamo.
And so this is like a guy in eighty five.
So I think that the I think the reason the

(52:54):
channel is popular this is this. I have no research
on this. It's just kind of intuitive that Dad Media
and our friend Nathan Jones, who does all the analytics,
most of the people that watch it, and it's been
millions and millions of views this stuff has had are
people like between forty five and sixty five, and I
think it's I think it's showing their eighty year old

(53:17):
parents that are feeling like they should check out that.
You know, Mom, look at this lady that's twenty years
old older than you are, and it's just kicking butt.
And I think, you know, for your audience, run that
is so relevant. I think that how how it's it's relevant,
how irrelevant the number of an age is because you'll

(53:38):
just see people that are super frail at sixty something
and somebody just going crazy at a at one hundred
and five, and so it really it's just it's it's
a joy to keep, you know, keep finding these people
and to and to just see you know, what they're
going to say. And like I said before, it's not

(54:00):
the stories don't have to be about dramatic things they've done.
There's there's there's a there's a beauty to the the
more simplistic people that have just lived good lives and
are proud of those good lives.

Speaker 2 (54:16):
Yeah, you've talked to me about you know, there's just
a quiet dignity about a lot of these people that
you and a lot of them. But as you mentioned,
you know, going back to World War two, especially these
veterans that you can sense that in them, but in general,
I think a lot of people there is that. You know,
you you get more comfortable with yourself as you get older.
Yeah you are.

Speaker 1 (54:37):
Yeah. And I and I just again a little lot
of talk, but I just I want to not regret
that and bring this up. There really is an intense,
an intensity of loneliness throughout the communities, and I really
do the one thing I'm really really trying to preach
as I speak and as I talk to a lot
of people that run livy communities is to tie in

(55:00):
with local high schools. Because like the one quick story
that speaks to that is a gentleman, a gentleman that
was you know, he's one hundred and one. It's kind
of frail in his walker going up to the van.
He gets into the van, we started talking. The guy
had a silver Star from World War Two for jumping
out of a plane that was flying about one hundred

(55:23):
feet over the water to rescue two British pilots that
had crashed. And like you hear that story and the
guy instantly is not this frail guy in a walker.
He's the guy that jumped out of a freaking plane
to do that. And so I went to his house
later that day. He had all of the stuff there

(55:45):
to show me. He was so thirsty to tell it
and show it. He'd lived at the community for ten years.
I drive out of the parking lot at the end
of the afternoon. It's right across the street from a
high school. How any classes have graduated talking about World
War two, talking about the creat war, created war, talking

(56:06):
about Vietnam and right across the street are these people
that are so thirsty to tell their experiences? And so
I just think that I think it's easy to get
caught up in the enormity of big picture issues. It's
not difficult to forge a partnership between a senior living
community in a high school to just have their history

(56:27):
classes start integrating residents, to tell that that's things that
people can just do.

Speaker 2 (56:32):
Yeah, And I think that's you know, there's much more engagement,
much more sense of meaning. Yeah, nothing wrong with going
to having you know, elementary or kids go and visit
a senior community or senior center and share, you know,
with the seniors. But the sharing of those experiences, I
think that's what's It's not just you know, being there

(56:53):
and leaving them.

Speaker 1 (56:54):
Yeah. Yeah, and it's a whole other topic. But I
think that the the importance of a relationship rather than
kind of a one and done experience.

Speaker 2 (57:06):
So before we go, I want to make sure that
we tell people how to get in touch with you
into you know, how how to watch the videos and
all the contact information. But before that, I just want
to know what's next for you.

Speaker 5 (57:18):
Now.

Speaker 2 (57:18):
You you so you mentioned that you're you're going around
and you're you're still doing your lecturing, you want to
do other things.

Speaker 1 (57:25):
Yeah, well we're gonna I mean, it really is. I
mean my life is insane schedule wise. So we're going
to wrap up the Vintage Voices tour at the end
of the year, and then next year I'm really going
to be focused. So we're going to still be showing
some of the content, but next year I'm really going
to be focusing on doing the these kind of deeper

(57:46):
dive documentaries that are all about aging, and they're all
you know, I'm not trying to make political states. It's
all about elevating agent. It's all about stories of people
that either live in senior living, people that work in
senior living, but really elevating all these stories that need
to be told in a really professional, well done way,

(58:07):
and we've done dozens of them so far. You can
see them at our our website as www dot Tailgate
for Joy dot com, t A L E g A
T E for Joy dot Com. And then I really
enjoy speaking, you know, all over the country to you know,

(58:28):
a lot of what I'm speaking is to senior living organizations,
but I'm trying to kind of branch out of that.
I'll still keep doing that, but I really want to
kind of get out to the the community at large
about these lessons I've learned, and you know, in my
own you know, however, I can do it myself, and
through the work we've done just really just kind of

(58:50):
help change the stigma of aging and for both for
the older adults themselves, but also for the people that
have all these fears and stereotypes and all this stuff
that I don't think has changed through Anti Aging Week
or all these things that are well intentioned. I think
it's you know, you watch the story of somebody that's

(59:14):
really made an impact, and it makes you not so
fearful I think of growing old, and I think the
work you're doing Ron speaks exactly to that as well.

Speaker 2 (59:25):
So Jack, and people want to get in touch with you,
can I give me your email?

Speaker 1 (59:29):
Oh yeah, email you know, you know, we love to
be getting folks following the Vintage Voices too, or that's
just Vintage Voices one hundred on Instagram or YouTube or Facebook,
TikTok whatever, and then yeah, email me and I you know,
if you've got I'm I'm working my way throughout the

(59:51):
whole from kind of the Carolinas up through the Northeast,
through the Upper Midwest and up in California. If somebody
that hears this has a great hundred year old I
can't guarantee it, but reach out to me. And if
there's a way to swing my van around and grab
the story, I'll do it.

Speaker 2 (01:00:10):
Mm hmm okay. And you know you're on LinkedIn and
Facebook and people you've got lots of interesting posts there
and then they can watch your reels, which I've done,
you know, So that's a great way to get a
taste for all of the stuff you've done. So I
encourage people to go on that because they are joyful.
You do come away with a sense of gratitude and joy.

(01:00:32):
So so Thanks very much, Jack, it was a great
hour to talk with you. I really appreciate the terrific conversation,
provoking thoughts to myself about my aging and my overall mantra,
which is to help people age successfully whatever that means,
but basically to do it with a not ignoring the

(01:00:55):
challenges we have, but also appreciating the lifelong growth, you know,
the life loop.

Speaker 1 (01:01:01):
So yeah, that's right, all right, thanks Royan. Great work
you're doing as well, and it's I'm honored to be
to be on your show.

Speaker 6 (01:01:08):
All right.

Speaker 2 (01:01:08):
So, folks, if you have questions for me, you want
to get in touch with me, I'm Rondot Rowell at
gmail dot com. Send me your comments for questions. Uh So,
until our next episode, keep moving forward forty five forward

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45 Forward #240 – Ask Early. Age Better. Beating the Barrier to Aging Well.

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}45 Forward #240 – Ask Early. Age Better. Beating the Barrier to Aging Well.