Senior Living Blog

This year our family vacation took us to the Olympic National Park, an amazingly scenic place in the extreme upper northwest corner of Washington State. In addition to being an absolutely stunning place to visit, I was curious to see the town of Sequim, near Port Angeles, the birthplace of Olympic Rower Joe Rantz, the main character in classic Daniel James Brown book The Boys in the Boat (which was also the subject of a PBS special). An inspiring true story, sometimes referred to as “Chariots of Fire with oars”, it chronicles the 1936 U.S. men’s Olympic eight-oar rowing team.

You love your parents. You don't want anything to happen to them. When you see your mom getting behind the wheel, you feel scared every time she heads out to run an errand. What if she misses a red light? Or doesn't hear a siren coming up behind her?

Senior scams are something that we hear about all the time. They happen all over the world every day. Scams can happen on almost any medium, so it is important to be knowledgeable and use your intuition when someone reaches out to you in a way that seems a bit off. 

In May of 2016 I wrote a reflection on Leadership and Hope, and how leaders cultivate hope in themselves and those around them in their daily work. Hope is an essential ingredient in leadership, because hopeless people generally lack the energy and purpose to inspire others to move together in a positive direction. Since that time I have been thinking a lot about optimism, which the Oxford Dictionary defines as Hopefulness and confidence about the future or the success of something.

Loneliness. It’s a feeling that just about everyone is familiar with. I’m sure we’ve all had a time where we’re just feeling lonely and wish we had someone to talk to. For some people, particularly seniors, this feeling is a way of life. According to the 2014 U.S. Census, 34 percent of people aged 65 or older live alone. There are many people in this world that do not have close family or a support system in place. In this case, living alone can become incredibly difficult when there are no friends or family to reach out to. Loneliness is a risk factor in seniors that may cause illness, depression or even death.

“Everything in an organization is about what happens next. Nothing we do is accomplished without people.” – Steve Proctor, CEO