Ep 72: www.aplan2age.org is HERE!!!!!

Folks, I'm excited, and I'll tell you why. For 15 plus years, and some of you guys have heard me talk about this, I've wanted something to make this aging journey easier. I tell people all the time it'll never be easy, but you can make it easier. My wife and I didn't do that. We didn't get ahead of it. We didn't do that 4 letter word called "PLAN". We fudged our way through for 14 years for all four parents, with two little kids- a sandwich generation classic.

So we started talking about this, and we've been talking about this with my business partner, Peter Ross, who's the Co-Founder and CEO of Senior Helpers, one of the largest in home care companies in the country. He and I started talking 9-10 months ago now, and we have created it and it's ready for public consumption- A Plan to Age. You can find it at www.aplan2age.org. 

We are currently in the application process for our nonprofit status, and I will let you folks know when that's complete. We just started probably looking at least a couple months before that application is approved.
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What is A Plan to Age?
It's there for two purposes:
1. To help individuals and families plan to really understand. ​

• How do I plan?
• Who do I talk to?
• How do I talk to my family?

What have we talked about then on the site, we actually gave you some examples of plans that people have done, as well as a blank plan that you can type right into on the site and then download and/or print it. It's comprehensive. It goes through all the different pieces that you need to understand about your loved one.
And again, we talk about this is normally older loved ones, in laws, parents, grandparents, but it can also be a spouse or a partner. We're really talking about finding out information, questions directed to them.

• What do they want?
• Where do they want to live as they age?
• If something were to happen to them, a fall, an illness, a combination thereof, who do they want to take care of them?
• Then we need to figure out if this really works. Let's say Dad's passed and Mom is still with us. She wants the oldest daughter to take care of her. The oldest daughter lives three states away, has a family, has a job- so is that really going to work?
• When you have this comprehensive conversation that we show you how to have, and go through all these questions and fill out this plan, even all the legal matters, it helps to make the unknown easier.
• Do they have the estate plan?
• Has a Power of Attorney been done?
• Do they have a health directive?
• The financial matters? We talk about the cost of care all the time- Has there been savings from Mom, Dad, Grandparents? Might the adult children have to add to that cost to help them on a monthly basis?
• Are they getting care in the home? Are they getting care at a community? Do the kids have the ability time wise, location, job wise, to be able to care for a parent, or parents.

So we're also asking you when you put this plan together to understand it's a living, breathing document that you're going to want to update on a regular basis, especially if something happens from a health perspective. 

2. The site isn't only about planning. We wanted to make sure that if someone's already in crisis, so what do I mean by that? If your loved one is in the emergency room, they had a bad fall. They're in the hospital or they're in skilled nursing and they're about to be discharged. Maybe they really can't live alone in their home. Something has to happen. Or maybe they're at home and need more help. We've gone through a lot of different scenarios that people will face. Whether we're talking about planning, whether we're talking about someone being in crisis, we've put the resources there. So you can find the resources.

• Who can I talk to? Who can help me? Who can make sure I'm doing the right thing?
• Where do I find help if I want to bring it in to Mom, Dad, Grandparent's home? Whatever the case may be.
• Where do I find help if I want to find out what's out there, for an assisted living, memory care community, et cetera, who can help me do that?

It's on the site.
I talk about this all the time, if you look off in the distance and you see this make believe hill off in the distance, you're going to see a countless number of silos and that's where the senior care industry currently resides- in all these silos. What we've tried to do is blow those up, create one large silo, one large tent, whatever you want to call it, and again, irrespective are you planning, or are you in crisis? What do you do? How do you do this? Who do you talk to? Who can help you? Where are the resources? All under the roof of that tent. The roof of that silo. We are trying to make it as easy as we possibly can this aging journey that we all go through. Whether we live to 60, 70, 80, 90 or 100 plus, it is a journey. I talked about the fact I'm 71. I'm not the same guy I was at 30, 20, 40 or 50. I'm 71. I workout all the time, play golf, do a lot of things to stay extremely active. Work. Points of Life, which you guys have heard about, the podcast, which I'm doing right now, launching A Plan 2 Age that I'm going to run as the CEO. I'm really trying to keep my brain engaged.

And the whole bottom line that I've been thinking about for these 15 plus years, folks, how do I help you? How do I share what I learned over 14 years of taking care of all four parents with my wife and our two kids, while trying to earn a living, trying to take care of them, trying to manage all this, trying to survive... the whole financial picture, going through that, almost drowning. Talk. I wish I could say to you there's some magic wand, magic pill, that's going to change this aging journey, and most of us are going to need care. I use the number, and you guys have heard me talk about this, that 95% of us are going to need care at some point. I broke a femur almost 10 years ago and I needed care. I was in skilled nursing. I didn't plan on that. I didn't plan on having an argument with the ladder, but I did. Stuff happens. And stuff happens to some of us, more often to others. We advance in age and stay pretty darn healthy, which is awesome, but at some point, most of us- that 95%- are going to need some form of care.

We've talked about how expensive it is. Most people don't know where to find- it's on the site. We really are encouraging you, our listeners, that are hearing this to start spreading this information about A Plan 2 Age everywhere. We want thousands, millions, of visitors to our site understanding "yeah, I should be planning five years from now, this thing's going great..." I realize most people will still be dealing with this in crisis. But if we can really change the percentage points and more people, probably not more than the people that are doing it in a crisis, but a lot more than they are right now, are actually acting before a crisis and planning, that would be awesome. Folks, it's not fun. It's not easy.

For you, for you out there that are listening that either have been through this or going through it, you know what I'm talking about. Taking care of one partner, one spouse, one older loved one is hard enough. You get multiples, and most of you aren't going to get multiples like we did, but one individual is tough enough. We've tried to think, OK, what do people need? What do they need to find? Who can help them? Who can they talk to? My wife would say to me many, many years ago "if there was just someone I could talk to to make sure I'm doing this the right way." We've set that up. So you can find those resources, find those people to talk to. Find those people that can help you so you're not sitting there like I was at midnight when you had to get up at 5-6 in the morning to go back to work trying to figure out where do I find help? Who can help me? We've explained it all. It's going to help with planning. It's going to help assist people. It's going to help with resources- for everyone's aging journey, irrespective of where you live in the country. Deep in the South, high and then northeast, high in the northwest, southwest, Alaska, Hawaii. Where do you live? We've tried to put together a site for everyone. If you're you're the adult children working overseas in Europe and Asia, Mom and Dad or Grandparents are still in the US, and something happens- You're in crisis. You need help. This site will help. You're living in one of those areas, you start realizing we need to plan. Especially with us in Germany, Italy, France, China, wherever the case may be, we need to act before something happens, act before a crisis. This will teach this site a plan to age, will teach you how to do it. It will show you some examples of people that have planned. It will give you a form to fill out. So you can make your own plan. Have we thought of everything? Probably not. Are we going to add to it as we go forward? Yes. Once we get our application approved for our nonprofit status, we'll make some further changes in a positive direction.

We'll keep looking at this. We'll listen to the public who reaches out to us. We'll make sure we keep adding the things and the items in the areas that we need to add to make this aging journey as easy as we possibly can. We all have busy lives. Many of us have children, they may be five years old, they may be 50 years old, there are children. Busy lives- most people have to work. We talk about this all the time, if the expectation really is that my adult children will take care of me, the conversation that we talk about per this planning: do they really understand that? Can they do it? Maybe they live 5 miles away, but their life is so busy. What are they going to change to be able to take care of Mom, Dad? And what happens if they don't live close? What happens if they live across an ocean? Act before crisis. Or if you're in crisis now, you need to act now. We're there to help you.

I'm going to keep talking about this, especially as we work through the nonprofit status and as we get approved. Again, folks pass this site: www.APlan2Age.org. We've tried to think, you got two people that have been in the senior care industry between Peter and myself, it exceeds 40 years of experience. We've seen a lot. Have we've seen everything. No, but we've seen a lot. And we tried to put that within this site. Most of the things that folks are going to need, whether they're planning or whether they're currently in crisis.

Reach out to me with comments, if you want to be a guest on the podcast:
e-mail [email protected].

As I say, every time folks, until we meet again, have yourself an awesome day.