Tiffany Robinson (00:03.246)
Today, we're joined by Steve Gurney, founder of the Positive Aging Sourcebook and a nationally recognized advocate for purposeful aging. For more than 35 years, Steve has helped individuals, families, and professionals make informed decisions about aging and senior living. Today, we're diving into how professionals and caregivers can better support solo agers, those living without spouses or close family nearby.

Welcome to the podcast, Steve.

Steve Gurney (00:35.562)
All right Tiffany, I am real excited to be with you here today.

Tiffany Robinson (00:40.236)
I'm excited too. Now before we dive in, can you share a little about your background and what led you to focus your career on the field of aging?

Steve Gurney (00:50.048)
Absolutely. Like many people in this field, I kind of got into this career path by accident. When I was in college, my grandfather needed a nursing home and I saw what my family had to go through. And when I graduated, I didn't really have the greatest job in the world. And I reflected on how there needed to be a resource of something that could help family members like mine.

I didn't think I was starting a business. I really just wanted something on my resume to show that I was a self-starter. And much to my surprise, people loved it. And I still publish this resource guide. It's called the Positive Aging Sourcebook and have been really fortunate to have a 35 year career working with older adults, working with their families and working with professionals in this space on

strategies, solution, and helping them make connections.

Tiffany Robinson (01:53.494)
Steve, I know you talk about the unique needs of solo agers. So let's start there. What does it mean to be a solo ager and why is it so important for professionals to understand this distinction?

Steve Gurney (02:07.172)
All right, well, this happens to be my favorite topic to talk about for several reasons that I'm sure will come across in our conversation today. But let's dive in first to what is a solo ager? I first wanna share with your audience that the term before we used solo ager was absolutely...

It was heartbreaking. It would make me cry when I heard it. It was elder orphan. mean, was, holy cow. Yeah. I mean, it's just, and Dr. Sarah Gibar coined this phrase, solo ager, and people have embraced it. it's not something that anybody seems to be really ashamed of or anything. It's something.

Tiffany Robinson (02:38.882)
Gosh.

Steve Gurney (02:59.608)
that almost that they wear is a badge of honor when they identify as a solo ager. But let's talk about what that is. Now, I do a lot of talks around this topic. And what I tell everybody is that I'm a solo ager. Even though I'm married and I have two children, there's one thing that I'm pretty confident of that me and my wife are not gonna pass away on the same day at the same hour.

One of us is probably going to outlive the other. So we'll be solo, we'll be without a partner at some point in our life. And my two children, as much as I'd like to rely on them if I had changes in my life where I needed support, I prefer to come up with a game plan, a solo aging game plan so that, you know, my kids in my support network

It can be their choice to provide support to me, not a necessity. So that is a broad topic of solo aging is that it's anybody that is concerned about how they're gonna receive support without a traditional familial support network. Now.

so when we do solo aging discussions, we get people that are, you know, married, unmarried, never had kids divorced, estranged from their family, all different shapes and sizes. But one group that I find is that is, is unique and wants you unique support and content is the group of solo agers.

that don't have a partner and don't have family, okay? Oftentimes they wanna connect with each other in a more meaningful way. Sometimes people in that group might be, hey, why do we have married people in this discussion? Even though everybody is planning for the potential to be a solo ager. So I know I'm babbling there, but...

Steve Gurney (05:21.751)
That hopefully gives your audience a little of an example of what solo age or who are solo agers.

Tiffany Robinson (05:30.892)
Yeah, it definitely does. When I saw the topic that you and I were going to be talking about right away, I was thinking, okay, we've worked with solo wagers, right? We do that all the time. How many solo agers are there? And so I did a quick Google search and Google told me you can tell me if it's off that there's about 22 million as of the 2021 US Census. Do you see this as a growing demographic?

Steve Gurney (05:57.204)
it's insane. And I'm sure those numbers are correct. And I'm sure that they're actually higher than whatever they're reporting. And anecdotally, I will tell you how I stumbled into this segment and how important it is to provide them with support. I do weekly live and interactive discussions, okay?

on my Positive Aging Community platform on every topic under the sun. And when we started doing discussions that had solo aging in the title, so whether it be open forum for solo agers, financial planning for solo agers, or an author who wrote on solo aging, my audience doubles. So...

I saw right out of the gate the demand and then the questions and the challenges and the solutions that these folks who are brave enough to identify as a solo ager and tune into our discussions were just so important that I knew I had to jump in with both feet to support this very important market segment.

Tiffany Robinson (07:19.316)
What are some common misconceptions about solo wagers?

Steve Gurney (07:23.799)
Well, I think the biggest misconception is that, know, and I'm saying this halfway tongue in cheek is that, this is lonely cat ladies, okay? Like I said earlier in my, to one of your questions is that I am, as all of us have the potential to be a solo ager at some point in our life.

Tiffany Robinson (07:52.173)
We do.

Steve Gurney (07:52.608)
And quite frankly, I talk to solos on a regular basis who they have lived robust lives with large families and lots of people in their network. And they just simply have outlived everybody. And I think we can all look at our own situation is that if I live to a hundred years old, how many of my family members are gonna be around? How many of my current friends?

are gonna be around to support me. And so this is something that everybody has to think about.

Tiffany Robinson (08:30.316)
Right? How does recognizing someone as a solo ager change the way that we should approach their care?

Steve Gurney (08:39.019)
Okay, now I'm gonna, well, so first off, I could probably talk for an hour on this topic, but I'm gonna try to be concise and give people some really good points on this one. Is that number one, we have to have empathy, okay? We have to have empathy, not only for somebody who's a solo ager, but for everybody. We have to, and...

Empathy is putting ourselves in their shoes. And this can be very difficult sometimes. In fact, I have an interview coming up later this year with a financial planner that only works with child-free clients. And one of the things when I met him and I talked to him, I realized it's like, know, if we have children,

and we're talking to somebody that doesn't have children, some of the language, if we're not on our toes and we don't practice empathy, some of the language that we could be using might seem a little bit harsh to that individual that doesn't have children, okay? And I hear this on a regular basis in that I'll be talking to somebody who identifies as a solo and they're reaching out to me because they're like,

hey, I've got a good network of friends, but all my friends have grandchildren and that's all they talk about. And I'd like to find some people that were a little bit more like me to add to my network. So I think empathy and then also when we're working with solo agers, it's helping them build what I call our personal village that is

combination of friends, family, neighbors, and paid providers. So anyways, I know I'm babbling.

Tiffany Robinson (10:45.364)
So once we recognize who solo wagers are, the big question is how can we serve them better? And so what are some strategies that you've seen work best to help solo agers feel empowered rather than dependent?

Steve Gurney (11:00.323)
So the key thing is that if somebody identifies as a solo, and they may not even have the capacity to put those words together, but if somebody identifies as a solo and you as a provider or a friend or a neighbor is reaching, is making a connection with them, the best thing that we can first offer is let them know that they're not alone.

that you're on their team and that you're here to support and help however you can. Now, it's also important to us as whether we're paid providers or friends and family is to sort of have a line in the sand on how much and what you're willing to do and what you're willing to commit because sometimes people by accident can sort of take advantage of that generosity.

But I would say that the most important thing that we can do first in supporting solo agers is help them build out their personal village. And this doesn't need to be very complex, and it can be as easy as if I'm a provider and I'm providing support to somebody who I've identified as a solo ager, it's like, hey, Mrs. Smith, let's sit down. I want to get to know you a little bit better.

you start having a conversation about Mrs. Smith's life. And what you want to do is weave in connections that she either has right now or connections that she had in the past that she may have not been accessing. And, you know, I always bust out a notebook and I'm just sort of making notes and I'm creating this list. And it could be, you know, tell me about your neighborhood. Who are some of the neighbors you connect with?

Oh, Karen across the street and I'm Karen's name down. What are you a member of a church or any clubs? Oh, you're a member of a garden club. Okay, wow, how often do they meet? When was the last time you went to a meeting? You know, I'm writing all these things down because the best thing we can do as a solo ager in supporting a solo ager is help them build out this personal village and make connections that can provide support.

Steve Gurney (13:24.887)
without writing a check, okay? Now, the beauty of this, if we are a paid provider, is that if Karen across the street is willing to hang out with Mrs. Smith on Wednesdays and Thursdays, that could save Mrs. Smith thousands of dollars in that, know, I don't need to have the...

the supportive services on Wednesdays and Thursdays when Karen's over here. And now the relationship with that paid provider can last much longer and be much more ingrained and supported.

Tiffany Robinson (14:08.876)
I think that's great. makes me think of, so from us coming from a home care agency, something that we do with our clients is we go through a social history questionnaire. We want to know what things are you interested, what things were you interested in the past? Tell us about your life. And we're using that primarily to help us match them with a really great caregiver, because we're doing kind of the same thing with our caregivers.

And that can help us with, you know, allowing them to have a little bit of that community together. But on top of that, a lot of our owners are really on top of what's going on in the community. Is there a group we could connect people with that will help them have this community, have them, you know, right where, you know, not everyone has the funds to have thousands of dollars worth of services a month. And so are there ways where

Steve Gurney (14:48.556)
Mm-hmm.

Tiffany Robinson (15:02.562)
this person can of course safely have some other community besides just the professional caregivers coming in. When I saw this topic again, I thought of a client that we cared for and I wanted to share that example with you. we had a client and he was a single gentleman, no children. And when his caregiver came in for the day, they said good morning to one another. And the client told the caregiver, that's the first time I've spoken out loud this week.

Steve Gurney (15:17.955)
I love it.

Tiffany Robinson (15:32.064)
And while the caregiver did know that this was a solo wager, it really took her back to hear him say, I haven't even spoken out loud all week. And we were only coming in twice a week, you know, to kind of do some check-ins, help tidy the house, make sure there's meals for him. And so that really affected our caregiver and that she was very meaningful with her interactions with him going forward because she realized how much her human connection matters.

So professional caregivers are more than just the task doers, know, coming in and doing the tasks, they really can be lifelines to meaning. Can you talk a little bit about the importance of that?

Steve Gurney (16:15.306)
wow. Well, number one, I'm giving your caregiver a gold star for number one, identifying that and sharing that with you and the team. And this is the real exciting role that we can be life changing, where we can be life changing, you know? And so it's like from...

Tiffany Robinson (16:40.076)
Exactly.

Steve Gurney (16:44.332)
So from that perspective, it's sort of like, let's say that this client can only afford two days a week. It's, okay, let's have some conversations and figure out, you know, can we engage him, whether it be one-on-one in person with a neighbor, with a church group, but then also it may be that

you know, that your caregiver just calls him and chats for 15 minutes on the days off. know, now, and this is pretty entrepreneurial here, I guess, if I'm thinking about it, is that it's sort of like, hey, Mr. Smith, you know, what you said to me really hit me, pulled at my heartstrings. The fact that

You know that I was the only person that you had talked to in three days and I would love to try to make a difference. And I talked to my team at the home office and they said that it's perfectly acceptable and okay for me to just give you a call. You know every day my schedule is kind of crazy, but you know, let's talk about the best time of day that I could just give you a call and check in.

And you know, I'm gonna do this. Well, let's try it out for a week or two and see how it goes. And they said, you know, we can do this at no additional charge for the first week. But then if it's something that you like, they would, you know, charge, I don't know, you know, $50 or something like that, $100. Yeah.

Tiffany Robinson (18:34.424)
I love the idea, yeah. I love the idea of keeping tabs and keeping the connection going even on the days when we're not coming into the home.

Steve Gurney (18:43.64)
Yeah, mean, I love it. And it's through those connections. And now here's where, like a lot of times our caregivers and our direct care staff are not as intuitive as the one that you're describing. But it's sort of like when we're coaching our team, it's sort of like we want to coach them to say, when you're working with your clients, whether you think they're solos or not, tell us what their...

Tiffany Robinson (18:57.132)
Right.

Steve Gurney (19:11.856)
If they're, if they're reminiscing about a group, if they're reppin reminiscing about a hobby, if they're reminiscing about something, let us know as management because you know, if Mr. Smith starts talking about model trains, it's sort of like we might reach out to the local model train club and have some members come over and chat with them about model trains. And that helps your caregiver because now there's

you know, he or she can be preparing lunch for everybody. And it brings new people into the picture.

Tiffany Robinson (19:52.59)
Another thing that our offices do is called meaningful activities and we recommend that they have just one, right? There could be more, but just one meaningful activity. Every single shift that you have with a client and of course that's with all of our clients, but I'm thinking, know, especially with those solo wagers, we're bringing in meaningful activities. Many of our offices will even set up stations.

in their offices and they'll have bags that the caregivers can come and pick up and it might be a craft bag. It might be board games that they can borrow for the week. know, different activities, things that they could do, a recipe, right? So just things where they can connect with one another. And I think those meaningful activities, of course, in the home, but even thinking outside the home, Is there a senior center that has something really cool going on that your client might want to be a part of that is really up their alley with the things that they're interested in?

Steve Gurney (20:35.672)
Mm-hmm.

Steve Gurney (20:46.168)
I love it. Great program. it's just, it's changing the narrative on how we support our elders. And it makes it, know, one of the complaints that I have from families, the reason why some families fire a home care agency,

is for the exact opposite of what you all are practicing is that I showed up at the house and the caregiver was on her phone watching TV with my mom and there was no engagement, there was no connection there.

Tiffany Robinson (21:28.782)
right.

Tiffany Robinson (21:35.566)
Let's talk a little bit about everyday hobbies and interests. I think that really can play a role for solo agers, right? We've talked about how other people might have their grandchildren and those activities and their children that are keeping them busy, but for a lot of solo agers, it might really go back to hobbies and interests that they have.

Steve Gurney (21:56.577)
Absolutely. And actually this is even like, this is important for solo agers, but this is broader for all of us is, that the, the, this is living a purposeful life, no matter what our age or ability. And one of the very frustrating things, like, let's face it. mean, somebody is not hiring a home care agency if they are in

perfect health and mobility and accessibility. when we hire support in our home, it's because we've had a change in our health that requires us to live a safe and purposeful life, we need that support. here's the thing is that oftentimes, especially if

our hobbies and our interests are centered around athletics or mobility, going on a walk every day, walking our dog, taking care of our homes, cleaning out the gutters. I mean, these are purposeful activities, but now we can't do them anymore. And there's this notion that, my life is over. I can't maintain my yard and clean my gutters anymore. And, and, and,

This is one area where we can provide a lot of support in helping people reinvent themselves based on their current status and discovering all the purposeful, the millions of purposeful activities that are out there that they can participate in that will put a smile on their face and...

I know I'm using the word purpose, and give them a purposeful life, okay? And that's where us as professionals that we can really be guides to get people through this difficult time.

Tiffany Robinson (24:03.806)
I was actually on your Positive Aging website the other day and I found an article that I thought was very interesting. And so it was talking about a survey on advanced care planning. And this survey found that 50 % of Americans are not familiar with advanced care planning. And so we all know that advanced care planning is important for everyone, but I would really think it's especially important for solo agers.

So if we're talking about a perfect world, when is the right time to start putting a plan into place of what you would like to have, right? If it's a perfect world, we're not waiting until we're kind of in those dire straights, but when would be the perfect time to have that plan? And then maybe what should be in that plan?

Steve Gurney (24:40.004)
You

Steve Gurney (24:50.632)
Yeah, so here's the thing in a perfect world, know, and I love the perfect world magic wand in a perfect world. On our 18th birthday, every single one of us have has advanced care planning because here's the thing is, is that oftentimes we all know people that have been in accidents that have passed away that are injured and didn't

live a long full, it didn't happen when they were 85 years old. A lot of times what we delay this planning because it's sort of like, I don't need that now. I need it when I'm 85 and I bring up 85 because that's an age that a lot of people reference when they're talking to me. When in reality, all of this planning can and should happen at age 18, which also makes it a lot easier for us as adults.

to talk about our end of life planning, or what would happen if I was incapacitated and somebody else needed to make decisions for me. So in a perfect world, we do that when it's younger. The reality is, is that in general, we don't do it until later in life. And usually some of the triggers are, and some of the ways that we can begin having conversations is when we see people in our orbit, our loved ones,

going through difficult decisions. Maybe it's dementia diagnosis. Maybe it's temporary or permanent mobility changes. Those are triggers that can bring the conversation. And the important thing is, I think a lot of times when we have these discussions, it's more about legal paperwork than it is having conversations. It's better.

to start having conversations with your loved ones about how you view, what is your definition of a good death? And what would happen if you needed life-sustaining treatment? Having those conversations in advance makes it a lot easier and more affordable when we go into an attorney or when we fill out the advanced directive forms. So again, another babbling answer.

Steve Gurney (27:14.905)
Yeah

Tiffany Robinson (27:16.012)
No, you're exactly right. The sooner you plan, the better it is. Now, as we're coming to an end, I do have a couple additional questions for you before we end. Is there a book, a podcast or a resource that you would recommend for professionals working with solo wagers?

Steve Gurney (27:27.139)
I love it.

Steve Gurney (27:35.005)
wow. Well, I think that if you well, I would recommend our we do a lot of discussions on our platform and the Positive Aging Network. We actually even have a solo aging club that we just started and people can access that at ProAging.com. But if and I don't have it handy here, but if you look up Sarah Zeth Giebar,

G-E-B-E-R, she wrote the first book on that addressed solo agers as solo aging. And I think that's a great first place to start.

Tiffany Robinson (28:16.544)
been on your website and there are a lot of really great resources there. So I definitely think that is a great place for people to reference. What's the most surprising thing you've learned about aging in your career?

Steve Gurney (28:31.71)
well, that, that how so many of us use the word aging incorrectly. Aging begins on the delivery room table at, at, at breath one, when we're born, that's when we start aging. But the way that we refer to aging is, is that it begins with an AARP card or it begins with losing mobility or not.

Tiffany Robinson (29:01.123)
Right.

Steve Gurney (29:01.902)
being able to drive. And so just a reminder that everyone is aging and that people that are older than us, I think that attitude breeds ageism and we need to just, we need to change that in our narrative.

Tiffany Robinson (29:22.048)
If you could leave our listeners, caregivers and professionals with one message about how to better support solo agers, what would it be?

Steve Gurney (29:31.342)
Just number one, reflect on your own life and recognize that there's a possibility that you could be aging alone in the future. And if you establish that empathy, begin to better imagine what the clients that you're serving that have no support network or a limited support network around them.

you will be able to communicate much, better and with a much more empathetic ear.

Tiffany Robinson (30:09.44)
We started our conversation with you talking about empathy and we're closing with you talking about empathy. And I really think that you've got it. It's so important and we have to use that when we're providing care. Thank you so much for your time today. We appreciate you being with us.

Steve Gurney (30:14.34)
Hahaha

Steve Gurney (30:28.1)
Thank you.