S3E10 (S2E8) Transcript: Building Purpose in Retirement

The BEST of TAD: Once a year we take the opportunity to highlight some our most important content. This is essential listening and we are pleased to re-broadcast our interview with Colin Milner.

Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
Hello, and welcome to the Third Age design podcast sharing essential information on senior environments. I’m Lori Pinkerton Rolet, and we have a very special guest today. You may have seen him on CNN, or Newsweek, or The Wall Street Journal. You may be familiar with his contributions to the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Ageing. Anyway, he’s really raising his game now by joining us on the TAD podcast! Yes, it’s Colin Milner, CEO of the International Council on Active Ageing, and I promise you a most engaging conversation on building purpose in retirement. It’s a bit of a double entendre. There’s building PURPOSE, and Building purpose. See what I did there? Anyway, Colin is based in Canada, and we’ll be staying in North America for our ‘Innovation Spotlight’ this month… when I’ll tell you about a New England-based retirement community. Located within a university campus. George Bernard Shaw said, both optimists and pessimists contribute to society. The optimist invents the aeroplane, the pessimist the parachute. It’s amusing and true. And I think it’s fair to say that there are many people who would like to parachute out of their later living accommodation. Third Age design is here to assist in the re-design of senior environments. We’re optimists and believe that by hearing from experts and sharing this information internationally, we can improve things, please go to www. ThirdAge.Design and tap on the ‘Join Us’ button. When you do you’ll automatically receive our quarterly ‘A TAD Extra’, extra exclusive information for our members, and there’s no cost to join. The Third Age Design podcast is supported by Innova Care Concepts whose mission is to enhance quality of life through innovation. From hydrotherapy pools to furniture, you’ll find quality, aesthetics and functionality in all unique Innova products. Innova Care Concepts the leading edge of healthcare. Okay, let’s get started. As you’ve already heard, my guest today is Colin Milner, CEO of the International Council on Active Aging and founder of the active aging industry in North America. The World Economic Forum refers to him as one of the most innovative and influential minds in the world on ageing-related topics. And he’s not even that old. He’s an award-winning author and has written more than 300 articles. And you’re going to find his insights in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and WebMB be among others. And he’s also a contributor to the World Economic Forum book- “Global Population Ageing, Peril, or Promise.” I could go on, but you’re going to find more information on today’s guest on the podcast links to this episode. So let me at last welcome: Colin Miller.

Colin Milner
Thank you very much for having me. Thrilled to be with you today. And it’s always great to speak with someone who has a passion for what we’re going to talk about today.

Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
Yes, they and obviously you do. And that’s my first question… I’ve done my background research, I think, and I believe you were in the field of exercise equipment, and then went into this. So what actually spawned your interest specifically in sort of later living an active senior living?

Colin Milner
Well, actually, my interest started even before then, I started my really my career in the health and fitness field at the age of 21. And after about six months, I realised very quickly that I got very tired of trying to help young people make bigger biceps. What I was really interested in was helping the individuals that were coming in to the fitness clubs, who were struggling to improve their quality of life. And as it turns out, many of them happen to be older. So that’s where my interest really first started. But it got literally put on steroids, if I could use that term from the fitness industry, when I was the VP of Sales and Marketing for Kaiser fitness equipment, because a lot of the initial research that was done in strength training and ageing that truly transformed where we are today was done with Kaiser equipment in the early 1990s. And what it showed was it doesn’t matter how old you are, you can always reverse some of the old loss that we have experienced. And the question becomes, how much of that loss will improve your quality of life? If you can reverse that.

Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
And what have you found? Have you found that that is really truly the case that you can reverse and improve your quality of life at almost at any age?

Colin Milner
Well, between the ages of 35 and 70, we lose about 50% of our strength, and 75% of our power. The problem is that most people have come to believe that that’s just a natural process of ageing. Or I should say most people of my parents generation. My generation has grown up with the fitness industry, it’s grown up with Jane Fonda and all these other people who have kind of transformed that way of thinking. And what we know today is that it is never too late to start, and that you can absolutely regain much of this strength that you have lost much of the power you have lost, which completely can transform someone’s life. The key is, you have to do it.

Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
Yes, we had a guest on the podcast, Sir Muir Gray, a few episodes ago who was speaking on a similar thing, it’s use it or lose it, but also that losing, losing everything as you age isn’t necessarily a natural part of ageing was and I think you’re making a similar similar point.

Colin Milner
it’s far from it. A lot of our loss comes from us, us not doing things us eating improperly, us smoking us, you know, drinking alcohol, all of these things add to our loss of ability, our loss of capabilities. And it also comes to us to transform that back the other way.

Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
And it doesn’t have anything to do at all with the hours that I spend sitting on a computer, does it?

Colin Milner
Oh, of course not. Of course. I think that that might have a little bit to do with it. But I mean, think about it, we wake, we sleep, which if you look at the astronauts in space, when they sleep, they atrophy. Actually in space, they atrophy period. But when we sleep, we atrophy. And yeah, and then we wake up, we get in a chair, eat breakfast, and we get in a car, and we’re sitting there are seated and then we go to work, we’re seated, we get in a car come home, we’re seated, we sit at the dinner table, we’re seated, and then we sit down and watch TV. Most of us are in a seated position for most of the day, we just gotta get up and move our butts to try and counteract that.

Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
I happen to know that you’re psoas muscles don’t like that…which is part of your central central core. So you took this concept, you saw that things were not happening in this particular area, and you founded the International Council on Active Aging. For anybody that is not already familiar with this. Can you explain what you do?

Colin Milner
We are a mission driven association that is focused on helping to change the way we age, and the way that people perceive the older population. And it’s our contention that we can do that by helping people to become healthier. The healthier you are, the more you get involved in society, theoretically, the more you are engaged in life, the less caregiving that is required, the less burden, which is the way many people view older adults still today, you are on your family. So our thinking is if we can help educate those who work with older adults, and how they help their residents or their members or citizens to live better longer, we can change the way we age on a local, national and global level.

Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
And thus, the international approach to what you’re doing.

Colin Milner
There you go where we’re in 57 countries.

Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
That is fantastic. We’re only in 16 so far, but actually, the Third Age Design podcast had a similar approach, which is if we can share this information, it’s going to benefit everybody. And so from from the off, we were interested in having these international conversations. In addition to the conferences that you do at the ICA and your articles and things, your website publishes research, it publishes white papers on topics that are related to active ageing. And one thing I noticed doing the research is, I really have to stress to the people listening, how influential and how quickly the ideas that you and the ICA double A do you call it the IC double A or the ICAA?

Colin Milner
ICAA. We could be one of those car agencies if you wanted, like, you know, the AAA but not Yeah,

Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
Ok, ICAA it will stay then!. People need to understand how innovative you are, and how quickly things turn around. So for example, you had a Forum in 2021, where you said, you know, we need a definition, industry wide definition of what ‘wellness’ is. And tn by June of this year, you’d already concluded that regardless of the definition, the goal is the same. And this is kind of the focus of today’s podcast, really. Your definition or your goal, if you will, was “a purpose-filled and engaged life for individuals”. So there must be so many potential advantages to wellness in communities. But that’s not really what’s being sold to people when they’re going, for example, into a retirement community. They’re not being sold necessarily, on a purpose-filled and engaged life. I mean, we are pushing this. So my question, I will get to it now, is actually in three parts column. So first of all, why is that not what’s being sold? Second of all, what are we losing out on as a result of that? And finally, if you can remember all these bits, what do we need to do to change things?

Colin Milner
Well, I think why is behaviour change. And that is, I’ve been trying to get rid of Diet Coke since I was 21. And I haven’t been able to do it yet it’s behaviour change, it is replacing it with something else that is going to give you as much satisfaction and if your business is care, and that’s what you’ve built your whole business model around, for a lot of people, it makes them very nervous to change that model. But we need to reflect what is happening in society as a whole. And there’s this massive transformation taking place where people have been told by the media now research by politicians by almost any and everyone that you can live better longer, you have all this potential inside of you, you just need to embrace it. And if communities don’t reflect that, they are missing out on millions and millions of potential residents who are looking for those solutions. All of us want to live in an environment that is supportive of the kind of lifestyle we wish, no one wants to really move into somewhere that is going to have someone that’s going to come and clean your butt. I mean, to be frank, that that that’s a little degrading for most people. So the reality not, not downgrading the value of it, because for some people, it’s extremely needed and valuable. But our goal is how do we prevent the person needing that in the first place? And you know, communities are changing. When I first started a Wellness Centre was donated equipment in small little apartment to that was leftover that wasn’t rented. Now, many of our members which are 10,000, strong, in all different levels of senior living communities, have standalone wellness centres on their properties that are 10, 20, 30, 40,000 square feet. That certainly isn’t the norm. But it is changing. Our latest research shows that 81% of those that we surveyed recently, a couple of months ago, see wellness as a high or essential priority, somewhat so that in the next five years, they expect to move 61% of them do to a wellness space community with care versus a care based community with wellness. Will we get there? I think a large portion will I think some that’s hyperbole. They’re excited and they see the train coming down the track. They just haven’t figured out how to jump on yet. But they’ll get there.

Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
In terms of somebody’s life purpose. When you’re waking up in the morning, let’s say you are retired. If you are well enough, you’re going to be able to continue to contribute to society in some way, rather than this idea of putting old people someplace and and them not necessarily being relevant. You’ve got, you’ve got decades of experience you have, you have creativity, you have people that have seen it all before that, that, if they’re well, they can interact with the with the broader community.

Colin Milner
Absolutely. And I think the thing is, a lot of times we try and get focused on purpose, not like us to focus on the word purpose full, because purpose is a big, hairy, audacious goal that most of us probably never actually figure out that word. But day to day being purposeful is crucial to living a well life. And yes, it is. The key to that is simply understanding that you can and embracing it. I don’t know how many people I’ve run across over the years who have said, you know, as I was in a wheelchair, and I got stronger, and I moved from the wheelchair to a walker, and then I got stronger, and I moved from a walker to a cane, and then I moved from a cane to walking independently. That doesn’t happen to everybody. But that can happen to many if they choose so. The key with all of this is choice. How do we want to live our latter years, it’s really that simple.

Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
Linked to that is something that I was kind of talking around just a moment ago, and that is this idea of social isolation, which sometimes arises around senior communities. So my theory is, and I think when we spoke on the phone earlier, I shared this with you, young kids want to hang out with the older kids, don’t they? I mean, generally, you’re always you know, and older people don’t just want to hang out with older people, because real life is not like that. And so my question to you is, I don’t know if it’s around activity, I don’t know what it’s around. But how can we as developers, or designers or architects of building an environments? How can we create environments that would encourage this interaction? Is it the building itself? Or is it the location?

Colin Milner
I think it’s the program’s because I’ll give you an example. Willow Valley, in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, they have this incredible centre that they opened up, and I went out there and I saw it, and it has pinball. It has bowling alleys, it has a swimming pool, it has meeting rooms, it has a fitness centre in it. And it’s all designed for all generations to participate with. And one of the things that they do is that they have the kids, instead of going to summer camp, they host the summer camps on the property, the goal is to get it so that the kids want to come to the community, instead of not come to the community. Now that’s more like the grandkids, you know, having adult, if we could call it such whatever adult means. But if we have those kinds of activities that you can participate with your parents as well, the key is to provide the opportunity for interaction into you know, we’re all interdependent. And if we can find ways to be interdependent together, and be interconnected, we can support our own endured, endured…That’s a hard word to say this morning, independence And it all comes back to doing things together that we like. You know, a lot of times we pre-programme communities to the degree that we don’t give people the freedom to do the things that they like, we just expect that they’re going to do the things we want them to do. So I think, you know, if we really understand our residents, we would also give them the ability to create that synergy amongst generations. I’ll give you a quick example. And that is if I like running the marathon, I’m gonna hang out with people who like running the marathon. Doesn’t matter when they’re young or old, as simple as that.

Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
Right? And so, if we’re designing buildings and environments that have a certain amount of flexibility, built into the spaces that aren’t personal spaces, that might be adaptable in terms of even room sizes or acoustics or things. If we’re looking at the insides, rather than the outsides for just a moment, then that may be fosters more creativity in terms of just having a standard quote unquote ‘activities room’, which will have paints in a drawer and a sink.

Colin Milner
Oh, yeah, I mean that that to me that that is so without sounding awful here, but it’s 20-30 years ago that model. Today what we’re looking at is you hit the magic word flexibility, you want to be able to have space that can be flexible, that can adapt to what is going on within that space. But you also want to have space that is able to support professional delivery of programmes and delivery of programmes by residents. Our latest research it happened about a month and a half ago shows that 90% of programmes are delivered by individuals that are professionals that work within the community wellness directors, fitness directors, what have you. And about 80% of the programmes are also delivered by residents. So we need not only a flexible mind, but a flexible space to enhance what goes on in that mind.

Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
that that wouldn’t be residents living a purposeful life by any chance, would it?

Colin Milner
Oh my goodness, imagine that. Why would we want that? What what is wrong with having a happy healthy resident? Oh, my goodness, no one would want that, would they?

Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
And some creativity and some giving back and some other things that we normally do in our in our day-to-day lives when we’re not considered necessarily older. For listeners in other countries,Colin, can you describe what is meant by the US term campus as it relates to the sector because we’ve had Melinda Avila-Torio using the word campus and later in the programme, I’m going to be mentioning Lasell village and Massachusetts, which is exactly that…it’s literally a senior community located on a university campus. But what else might the term campus refer to in a US context just for people overseas?

Colin Milner
A lot of times it really describes larger properties: properties like continuing care retirement communities that have independent living, assisted living, long term care. They have mammory care that palliative care, it’s a full campus of all the different services they have.

Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
Sorry, I’m not trying to be rude, but that was memory care, not mammory care.

Colin Milner
That’s right. Memory Care, memory care.

Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
Thank you just checking!

Colin Milner
I’m Jamaican who lives in Canada spends most of the time in the US and as a British passport. So hell, I don’t know what my words sound like sometimes. But yes, memory care. And so that is a full campus of all the different services. I mean, you know, campus can be used very loosely to just describe the property. But I think when you’re looking at to campus, from my end, I look at it as a large property that has many different services that fall under, just like a university.

Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
Right. Okay. And that’s, that’s the name probably came from that university model. And it’s interesting, because depending on where in the world you are, so Japan would be one example, the United Kingdom and another where space is really at a premium. Yes, but they still might have a campus, even though the campus might consist of a roof terrace, or some sort of garden around the facility, it could still be a smaller, contained location, but it could still have some of these offers with the wider community, couldn’t it?

Colin Milner
Yeah, it has all the different elements, really. And that’s what you’re talking about. You’re talking about all these different elements that come together to create this form of a campus that you can live in.

Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
Okay, I really liked the term I’d love us to start using that here in the UK, I think it it broadens the mind away from the idea of a building, into an offer. Which is kind of a different, a whole different approach. I’ve seen in some of your literature that you mentioned spaces for internet shopping and deliveries. Now we have…I’ve never been asked to do that. But it makes so much sense. What uptake have you had on that?

Colin Milner
Think about it, and that is at least in the US and Canada. The world is all about Amazon and Amazon deliveries, FedEx deliveries. Purolator. There’s so much in the pandemic especially, there’s so much foods that were delivered and products that would delivered. Where do you hold them? If people aren’t at home? Where did they get delivered? So having those kinds of spaces, once again, flexible spaces, is really key. And I don’t think that the online end of things is going to be slowing down anytime soon.

Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
It doesn’t seem like it. And I think one of one of the things I read also mentioned, you know, even about food deliveries, you know, you don’t necessarily want the Chinese takeaway being walked all the way through the building by somebody who’s Nino, not necessarily meant to be there.

Colin Milner
You don’t want to dripping along the floor?

Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
No, interior designers hate that. I will just say, because you were mentioning the pandemic, I really wish at the beginning, I had thought to invest in cardboard. Ah, yes. I mean, please,

Colin Milner
I would have loved cardboard, any kind of delivery service, or PPE.

Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
Yeah, I mean, the the other kind of, so that’s one space. So we’re just talking about Internet, shopping in that kind of space. The other thing is, we’re often asked to locate a gym in the way that you mentioned earlier, which is, you know, a couple of pieces of equipment, maybe a mirror on one wall and a yoga mat. And it’s usually as you said, either in a spare room that’s on the small side or in a basement. I’m guessing you don’t like that idea.

Colin Milner
Oh, I hate that idea. Well, no, let me, let me re-phrase that. Years ago, I used to travel a lot. And I was in, I would stay at hotels, it had state-of-the-art fitness equipment. And it was equipment in the basement, right by a sauna. The equipment was all rusted out. And it was really deceptive advertising. And to me, if we are going to be true to a wellness message, we also need to be true to what we call wellness, and how we deliver it. And delivering something it that has no staff, in a setting that is inappropriate, really, really counters, what the wellness message is all about. That’s not to say, to go out and build a big huge centre, it’s just simply to say, if you’re going to focus on wellness, you need to start with one word, commitment. If you don’t have the commitment to do it properly, don’t do it. Because you do yourself and your residents and their family a disservice.

Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
A tick box exercise rather than what you were saying,an actual commitment.

Colin Milner
Absolutely, absolutely. And it’s easy to tick a box. It’s hard to fulfil the commitment. And the commitment, once you start down that path includes staffing, it includes onboarding, it includes policies, it includes your marketing it and people, it includes everything. And sometimes we’re just not ready to make that move. But let me tell you that wellness is one of the fastest growing industries in the world. And the question is whether you are involved or not, you know, your customer will be, the question is whether you are.

Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
right. And whether that’s integrated into your mission for what it is that you’re you’re providing, you mentioned staff. And there’s sort of a after the pandemic, a global lack of staff available and retention is proving very difficult as well. Do you have any research back on how any of this the wellness programme or that sort of focus has affected staff and or staff retention?

Colin Milner
Well, I think we don’t have definitive research. What we do know as an example, is that wellness when it comes to residents will help your residents stay in your property 2.7 years longer. So if you were looking at apartments or rentals or anything like that you’re talking about significant revenue. We know from a staffing perspective, that if you have a healthier and engaged staff, that they are going to be just that healthier, and they’re probably going to be a better ambassador for your organisation. Now, the question is with all of this going on and burnout and staff loss and so forth, could wellness reduce that? I believe it can. I think wellness is a more positive approach, then dealing with care day in day out, that’s not to say that once again, that there’s the diminished value in that, it’s just simply a different level of stress. And I think that wellness, your staff, stick around probably longer because of that.

Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
Right, so you’re you’re saying to your entire organisation, were in the wellness business, as it filters down through all and in fact, I read a a document that you had produced on senior living communities that deals with this, that if it goes through every single level of the organisation, the mindset changes for everyone.

Colin Milner
Well think, think about the money that people spend to go to all these wellness resorts. And if you look at the world, or the Global Wellness Association, or Global Wellness Institute, their numbers show that if somebody is purchasing a wellness property, that they will spend about 25%, more. So you have residents that are staying longer spending more, happier, healthier, able to do more. And they tend to also attract other people like themselves. I don’t see the downside, except for how you view your own property.

Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
This obviously changes the model what you’re talking about somewhat from the status quo. And I would say more than somewhat…quite significantly. What do you see as the future directions on this and the senior living sort of industry?

Colin Milner
I think we are at a fork in the road. And that is, we’re going to have those who will continue down the path, just the way they have, they will probably still be around, and they will certainly fill a need. But I think we will see others go down this new path, they will be more attractive to a younger resident, they will have greater sustainability because people will be healthier in their communities and stay with them longer. So their costs will be lower. And they we’ll just simply see an industry that will, you know, go in two different directions. And that’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with that. The only thing you need to figure out is, do you want to serve the very small percentage of the population to community serve right now? Or do you want to serve a much larger percentage of who are looking to live better longer? In a community that supports that?

Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
Is it going to come down to cost point, are we going to end up with people not having this offer of wellness on the cheaper end of the market only because that seems like a disservice kind of to humanity?!

Colin Milner
I think the problem is that people perceive that wellness is for the rich, and it’s not, you know, being spiritually Well, socially, well, physically engaged, has nothing to do with money. Okay? If you want to go to a fitness centre, then yes, there’s money involved there. Lots of low cost fitness centres if you don’t have one at your community. But all of the different areas of wellness I can be engaged in. And it doesn’t matter as far as dollars, how it’s delivered will change, of course. But that doesn’t mean that you don’t have access to it.

Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
In terms of budgets, we always have some limitations and what happens to us as designers and architects as people will build a building. And that’s where all their money’s going, you know, they’ve got this big building project and everybody’s walking around in hardhats very excited about the whole thing. And then the technologies come in of which there are a lot and then they take another whole portion of the overall budget and then we’re left as designers with whatever’s leftover. And you know what, we can deal with that because we’re creative, we can find ways around that. But, it begs the question with all of these technologies coming our way that’s supposed to revolutionise active ageing…are there any particular ones or types of technologies that you think are really worth consideration and really worth giving up some of the budget toward ?

Colin Milner
Yeah, I think technologies that people use. There’s a lot of what I call bling things out there, but I think it’s all about the technologies that people use. We see wearables are becoming, you know, adopted by older adults and by community. We see artificial intelligence. There’s a lot of things like DNA and genetics that haven’t had broad reach yet within the community. That will be sooner or later. There’s artificial intelligence, there’s robotics, those things will come sooner or later, they’re not there yet. So you look at what is it that will actually enhance someone’s experience. And that could be as simple as, you know, streaming services, to wearables to, you know, whatever you think your residents will use,

Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
Or even something like a Zoom technology or a way of speaking to friends who maybe are not as mobile as they used to be and located someplace else, because they’re not in a wellness village.

Colin Milner
Exactly, exactly.

Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
That’s really, really been a useful dialogue today. Colin, I want to thank you so much for being a guest on the Third Age Design podcast. Thank you so much.

Colin Milner
It’s been my pleasure, Lori, and I’m happy to do it anytime you wish.

Lori Pinkerton-Rolet
You’re going to be sorry, you said that.

At the beginning of the podcast, I mentioned something which may have piqued your interest. This concept certainly captured mine. This month’s ‘Innovation Spotlight’ is shining on Lasell Village in Newton, Massachusetts, USA. This is a senior living community with a big difference. Inspired by Lasell University. This is the USA is first senior living community to require each resident to commit to continuing education. Taking lifelong learning to a whole new level. Residents take college courses alongside students who are pursuing degrees and the village also offers a personalised fitness service, in addition to their wellbeing centre, the community itself, and many other amenities. Remember the sense of purpose or purposefulness that we were discussing earlier in the podcast with Colin? Well, this initiative is one which will really get you thinking quite literally. You’ll find a link for more information on the podcast page for this episode at www.thirdage.design. Just a quick look at our TADinternational events calendar Intercare Asia, the International Health and Wellness Expo is taking place in Bangkok, Thailand, from September 29th until the first of October. You’ll see today’s guest Colin Miller in person by attending the ICAA conference, Leadership Summit and Expo in Orlando, Florida, USA, from the 8th to the 10th of November, and the Future of Ageing 2022 Conference takes place at the Wellcome collection in London, England on November the 24th. You’ll find more international shows and conferences on the events page at Third Age.Design. And let us know via the contact page if you have an event that you’d like to have listed there. Thank you to our special guest Colin Milner to our producer Mike scales, who works remotely and so I haven’t seen him in a long time,to Valerie Adler have the right website to Peter Thorne, who composed our theme music and is playing the piano with Mary Blanchard on flute… and to ou sponsor, Innova Care Concepts the leading edge of health care. And finally to you. Thank you for being part of a community who believes we can improve senior environments together. I’m Lori Pinkerton-Rolet and I hope you’ll join me for the next one.