Senior Care Academy - A Helperly Podcast

The Role of Grandparents Today with Marc Joseph

• Helperly, Caleb Richardson

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How do shared experiences shape a generation? What role do grandparents play in the lives of their families? And how can Baby Boomers leave a lasting legacy for future generations?

In this episode, Caleb Richardson sits down with Marc Joseph, (aka “Gramps”) the visionary founder of BabyBoomer.org. Together, they delve into the mission of the platform and the unique journey of the Baby Boomer generation, highlighting how their shared history has shaped their outlook on life, family, and community.

The conversation touches on the evolving role of technology in communication, the enduring importance of grandparenting, and the timeless values of love and family in raising children. Marc passionately advocates for Baby Boomers to remain active, share their hard-earned wisdom, and inspire younger generations.

Whether you're a Baby Boomer yourself, or part of a younger generation eager to learn from their insights, this episode is packed with meaningful lessons and powerful takeaways. Tune in to hear Marc’s advice on staying engaged, leaving a meaningful legacy, and what’s next for BabyBoomer.org as it continues to connect and empower a generation.

Takeaways

  • Baby Boomers share a unique set of experiences that connect them.
  • The mission of BabyBoomer.org is to provide resources for Baby Boomers.
  • 30% of Baby Boomers are not involved in their grandchildren's lives.
  • Teaching children how to think is crucial for their development.
  • Reading to grandchildren fosters bonding and listening skills.
  • Technology has changed the way Baby Boomers communicate.
  • Baby Boomers own a significant number of businesses in the U.S.
  • The importance of family and love is paramount in parenting.
  • Leaving a legacy is about sharing wisdom with younger generations.
  • Engagement with the community is essential for Baby Boomers.

Timestamp to navigate through the episode:
02:58 The Mission of BabyBoomer.org
05:58 Shared Experiences of Baby Boomers
09:02 The Role of Grandparents in Modern Families
11:51 Teaching the Next Generation
14:56 The Impact of Technology on Baby Boomers
18:04 Legacy and Wisdom of the Baby Boomer Generation
21:12 Reflections on Growing Up as a Baby Boomer
23:59 The Importance of Family and Love
26:58 Challenges and Opportunities for Baby Boomers
29:59 Advice for Aging Well
31:47 Future Initiatives of BabyBoomer.org

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Speaker 1:

How do shared experiences shape a generation, what role do grandparents play in the lives of their families, and how can baby boomers leave a lasting legacy for future generations? In this episode, I sit down with Mark Joseph aka Gramps, the visionary founder of babyboomerorg, and together we dive into the mission of the platform and the unique journey of the baby boomer generation, highlighting how they have a shared history that have shaped their outlook on life, their family and community. The conversation touches on evolving the role of technology and communications, the enduring importance of grandparenting and the timeless value of love and family in raising children. Mark passionately advocates for baby boomers to remain active, share their heart and wisdom and inspire the younger generations. So, whether you're a baby boomer yourself, part of the younger generation, eager to learn from their insights, or you're simply someone that's interested in the art of aging gracefully, this episode is packed with meaningful lessons and powerful takeaways.

Speaker 1:

Tune in to hear Mark's advice of staying engaged, leaving a meaningful legacy. And what's next for babyboomerorg as it continues to connect and empower a generation. First, mark, thank you so much for taking the time, um, and I really like the mission that you're building at babyboomerorg, so I'd love to kind of talk about that mission first. So what is the mission and what inspired you to create babyboomerorg?

Speaker 2:

well, as you well know I appreciate you inviting me to uh to your show is the baby boomer generation is as diverse as any generation before and after it. I mean, whether it's in politics, religion, ideas you just see it now going on in our country. You know it's very diverse. In common that many of these other generations don't is this shared and connected experience, because when we were growing up there were three television stations and we all had landlines. So, yeah, that's how we got all of our information. So we've got this cohesive generation just grew up on the same stuff. You know that's how we grew up.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you know we were there for the kennedy assassinations. You know our generation experienced Martin Luther King assassination. Martin Luther King was yesterday, so we appreciate that. Landing on the moon. We were there for that when we were growing up. Birth control became very widespread in the baby boomer generation. Vietnam Vietnam was a definition of our generation.

Speaker 2:

We had riots in the streets in the late 60s but we had all this great music. I mean, when you think about it, elvis, beach Boys, the Beatles, the Three Dog Nine, association Supremes we had all this wonderful music that brings us as a generation together. We had all those great movies Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kids, all the Jaws, all those Bill River movies, really, animal House, star Wars, the Godfather all these shared experiences brought us together. So we decided to build this site, not only to share all these wonderful things we did when we were growing up, but to be talking about what we're doing now. I mean, we've got the areas for how to play pickleball, you know, retirement travel, investments and all that kind of stuff, and so what we're doing now and then we're also have a big part of the site on what's going to happen to us in the future Alzheimer's and dementia.

Speaker 2:

I know you've had some serious podcasts on those subjects. You know we've got major, major information about that. So we decided to pull this all together. Myself and three other baby boomers got together and how it really started was I had written a children's book. It's called I Don't Want to Turn Three. I think it skipped, yeah that's sweet.

Speaker 1:

I don't want to turn three, I'm getting skipped.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's sweet. And as I was promoting the book and going around talking about the book and what would be the role of parents and grandparents, it became very apparent to me that our generation, the baby boomer generation, was not involved in the raising of the grandkids. 30% of us, 30% of baby boomers, are just not involved. There's all kinds of reasons for that. One of the reasons could be is we don't like to spouse our kid Mary, so we don't get involved.

Speaker 2:

That could be one reason for it. You know, we, we, we give our kids unsolicited advice.

Speaker 1:

No, way yeah.

Speaker 2:

You raised me, I'm going to you, know you raised me.

Speaker 1:

I'm going to be a great parent.

Speaker 2:

You go do your thing. So there's all kinds of reasons. You know that we're not. You know we undermine our, our, our parent, our kids authority when they come to play with us. We may show, uh, you know, favorites uh of all these grandkids, you know. Yeah, now I have my favorite.

Speaker 1:

Well, at least you're yeah at least you're willing to say I didn't even call my wife.

Speaker 1:

It is an interesting like uh topic. I haven't even told my wife that's funny, but uh, I was actually uh listening to this guy talking about how it's almost medicinal for seniors to have interaction with their grandkids, like even proximity, if they, like you know, live in the same town and they like see each other at walmart. It's like so reassuring. So it is an interesting thing I didn't realize happening with baby boomers compared to other generations of like involvement of grandkids with their grandparents, with their grandkids. That's very intriguing to me. I didn't know that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

So that's one of the reasons we started the site is we wanted a place where the 30% of grandparents who really don't care much about the grandkids can gather, get information.

Speaker 2:

I mean because it's so important for us to be involved in the raising of this newest generation. And, when you think about it, these kids that are from zero to 10 years old are going to be the smartest generation this country has ever produced. I mean, you think about it as soon as they come out of the womb they're on the internet. They got their cell phones, they've got all this electronic stuff that we never had. I mean, they're going to be so much smarter than us. But we, as grandparents, have got to get involved with them to get teaching things outside of the cell phone, outside of the internet. You know how to go out and play, how to get involved, how to communicate, how to have relationships. So that's why we, as this generation, has got to get involved with the youngest generation, because we've got to round them out, because, again, they're they're going to be much smarter than we ever were.

Speaker 1:

It is an interesting like how you mentioned baby boomers. You had so many universal experiences because there were only so many options at the time, and I think that's something that the younger generation can pull from. The baby boomer generation is that the diversity among young people, not just of like political or socioeconomic or anything, but the diversity of interest because the entire world is available to them. So you have people in like the Midwest that are obsessed with like Korean pop. That wouldn't have never happened like 60 years ago, because they have every aspect of the world available and so kind of having that re-centering or grounding or finding some sort of combined experience for these younger generations, rather than everybody being on their own kind of separate line or journey, surrounded by people their age that have zero common interest because they're they have everything available. So you have one person that's like obsessed with football, one person that's obsessed with like anime, and it's just like no congruence kind of.

Speaker 2:

Well, when you think about, the role of parents and grandparents is to teach children how to think, not what to think. They're going to learn what to think later on in life. We have to teach them how to think, how to keep an open mind. And if you think about it and again, it's because I'm a kid's author and so I'm prejudiced at this but we need to teach them, we need to get them involved in the reading of books. You know, they've got their internet.

Speaker 2:

Let's get them involved in the reading of the books and you think about that. You know, and just picture as a grandparent I got my little grandkids, say, three, four, five, six years old, and so you decide I'm going to sit down there and read a book with them. It only takes 20 minutes, it's not like it's some major event. But if you think about just the action of reading a book with a kid sitting on your lap, all the different benefits. One of the benefits is the bonding. It gives you a chance to really spend time with your child outside of the noise of everything else your grandchild. So you should be reading books to your grandchildren just for the bonding Get closer to them. Another reason that you should be reading books to your grandkids is it supports listening skills. Now you and I both know, as we have grown older, that listening skills is our number one skill. You, as a podcaster, you've got to listen.

Speaker 2:

You've got to listen. Yeah, you know what you're doing, so you ask the right questions. You know, or find the right people. You know I have to listen to people that we are dealing with to make sure our site is better than it was yesterday, and so the listening skills that we have to have, you know. This teaches them. If you just sit down 20 minutes a day or night and read a book to a child, it teaches them how to listen and that's a skill that's going to really pay off for them down the road.

Speaker 2:

Another reason we should be reading books to children is it helps with the cognitive and language development when they're real little two, three, four, five, six years old. There's plenty of these words in these books that they don't understand because you can't explain it to them. Let them get involved with that. There's a lot of words in these books I don't understand. I got to go look up. So learning the experience for everyone. And then you know the attention span when you're two, three, four years old. You're bouncing off the wall all day long.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I've got a three-year-old, so you know what I'm talking about looks perfect for you.

Speaker 2:

I don't want to turn three, so you know you get. You give them a concentration, self-discipline. So I would highly recommend that anyone in your audience take that time, be that grandparent, be that parent who actually reads books to your kids, because they're not getting a lot of that Once they get on the internet and in their phones. They're not getting that. But balance what they're learning there with how you can balance them and teach them, because, again, it's our job is to teach them how to think, not what to think yeah, what are some.

Speaker 1:

So what aspect of the baby boomer era do you think you you suggest to people that they want to impart or rub off on their, the younger generation on how to think? What unique insight comes from it?

Speaker 2:

you the the best thing to thinking about how to think is that you want people to to go after their passions. Okay, you know, one of the things and I think baby boomers kind of realize this is they're getting there in their 60s and 70s is they may have had all these great passions when they were kids and now, but they had to go to work.

Speaker 1:

You know they had to make a living.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and now it's a chance for us, as baby boomers, to explore our passions, whether you want to be a writer, or you want to have a hobby, or you want to be a woodworker, if you want to be a teacher.

Speaker 1:

So that's what we need to impart onto all these younger generations is, as you're learning and exploring don't be afraid to go after your passion, because that's what's going to make you who you are today. Yeah, I think that technology has definitely made it where you can kind of do those two things in tandem, where you can provide for your family and and start a career, but also, like the side hustle culture of today where, like everybody has, so many people can explore passion, start a blog, research something, do school at night, like so many other things that make it so they can do those things in tandem. What other ways do you think technology has maybe impacted that baby boomer generation?

Speaker 2:

Because it has, like I said, it's impacted the younger generation in so many ways attention span connection, like real connection, person to person, irl, in real life connection, um, and I think that that does have an impact on baby boomers, but maybe there's some positive impacts that you've noticed as well well, you know, life is so different than it was 20 years ago yeah, we didn't have our little cell phones that we use and we are educated, and so, whereas it also gives us a chance to communicate better because now you can, you can call or, mainly, text, as I'm learning from my kids, yeah, they prefer Texas it gets you a chance to be the communicate.

Speaker 2:

You know, what's interesting is we kind of build our site to talk about what you're just talking about. You know, when you go to our site, you'll see that we have 748 contributors to the site. In other words, the way it's built is that we have gotten a hold of many, many of the best experts in the country to contribute their content to our site. So our site becomes a brand new site every day, because the latest podcasts are uploaded, the latest articles, the latest blogs, but everything that is is relevant to that, and so, within, you know, with these 748 contributors from all over the country that are, you know, adding content to the site, you know we've been able to create so far 379 different departments.

Speaker 1:

That's awesome.

Speaker 2:

You know we have a department. You talked about being an entrepreneur, being a solo. You know doing your own thing. We have departments for that. You know we've got the departments for the dementia and for Alzheimer's and Parkinson's and all that. We've got those departments. So we've been able to pull together all these different departments and all these kinds of interests. And the reason we're so diverse is when you step back and think about it. Even though the baby boomer generation is getting older.

Speaker 2:

There are still 12 million businesses that are owned by baby boomers. Yeah, that's insane. Yeah, those are 12 million businesses all throughout this country, in every small town, every big town.

Speaker 1:

That's almost 50% of all. Isn't there like 30 million businesses in the US, or something like that? So it's literally like 50% are owned by your generation, which is, yeah, you know, and they've got to pass it on.

Speaker 2:

Eventually, yeah, we're dying, so we got to pass it on. So some goes on to their kids, some gets sold. So we with 12 million businesses still owned by baby boomers. We have a tremendous part of our site devoted to marketing and social media and LinkedIn and everything that you need to build your business. We even have an area for exit. In other words, how are you going to start your business? What are you going to do with that? So, but when you think about it, so we've got all these different departments that we've created for our generation, and and so we've got 150,000 pages on the site.

Speaker 2:

We've got 132,000 different podcast episodes on the site. We got hundreds of books on the site, and so we built this to to to share with our generation. But what we found is where we thought only the baby boomers would be coming to the site. It's really their kids and their grandkids, because they're just trying to understand. Who are these baby boomers? Yeah, it's driving them, yeah, so so that's what's so fun about this site. It's a it's information that changes every day. It's all the latest information for our generation, but you know a lot of them you're not a baby boomer, you're contributing yeah yeah

Speaker 2:

so it is part of you know, this whole experience of as we're growing older. How can we share with what we have? Because, in reality, the job of baby boomers today is to help educate the younger generations. And you know, as you get older, each decade, you get smarter, because you make a lot more mistakes and you can learn from them. A lot more mistakes and you can learn from them. And if we can take the time as the older generation to spend time with your generation, with our grandkids generation, you know and teach them to help them make less mistakes than us, and that's great because, when you think about it, you can't take anything with you when you're gone. You're gone, you can't take your money, you can't take any. You know what do you leave behind? What's your legacy? What, what, what are people going to remember you?

Speaker 1:

yeah, they need to remember us for helping the other younger generations be better than we ever were yeah, that's a, a crusade or a hill that I'm that I'll die on um, where it is the, the baby boomer generation, and then the generations, uh, before you. They're like their role is to make it right. You guys climbed, your parents and your grandparents, and now it's like cement that, that level that you've created, or that platform that you've gotten to, so that way the next generations can grow off of it. It was an interesting thing that I talk about all the time. So Eric Erickson is a psychoanalyst and he basically he created the psychosocial development of human beings.

Speaker 1:

So, like every phase of life, there's something that drives you or makes you feel motivated or purposeful. And, just like you nailed it with baby boomers or seniors, older adults, what makes them feel the most valuable is like giving, giving all of their wisdom, giving their insights, teaching, imparting their legacy, cause really, that's like you said, you can't take anything with you, so you want to, and I'm everybody's on this journey where it's like, when you take your last breath, you want something that'll outlast you and the only thing that really will is the lessons that you've lived. Even like investments or assets or money, only last a couple of generations before somebody squabbles it, so squanders it. So, yeah, I think it's something that is so underappreciated but with on both sides, among older adults and younger people of like that is how one we get incredible fulfillment, at least in my, in the, all the experience that I've had and within, like my company and everything, sitting down and listening to the stories of vietnam and the riots and and uh, the assassinations and the political movements and all of those things that you just even if you were like a regular run of the mill guy that went to work nine to five and but you were there the news articles that everything that you experienced is something that learning about it from you, rather than a textbook in junior high or like elementary, like these kids are now, you know all that stuff happened 60 years ago, so they're learning about it in school, but it's so much more impactful and um lasting to have it come from an older person that lived it and ideally it's a grandparent.

Speaker 1:

But if you don't have grandkids or, like you said, maybe you don't care for them as much like some younger person you know. Go and volunteer at the food bank alongside a 21 year old volunteer and talk about your life and I think it it's mutually beneficial and enlightening in my opinion, but yeah, what's interesting is that you kind of brought up is I go back and I think about my parents.

Speaker 2:

Okay, my parents' generation grew up in the Great Depression and then World War II. It was a very disciplined generation. It was really the start of the building of America, the suburbs and so forth. But they were quite disciplined because they had to go through all these hardships. I mean, we haven't had to deal with a depression like they had to, we haven't had to deal with a World War II like they had to, and so that kind of formed their generation and it was a very disciplined, great generation. But the way they raised us, discipline-wise, was a lot different than what you were raised. I mean, they were disciplined. My dad, my mom, would say wait, wait until your dad gets home and he would chase me around the kitchen table with a bell.

Speaker 2:

That's how they disciplined us. We learned from that and I don't think we did that to this next generation. But the discipline has changed and it's evolved and we've all learned from the generations, and probably the discipline of today's kids, much better than when we were growing up. And things change. You talked about electronics. We didn't have electronics, you know, we had our three radios, our three television stations, and so we didn't have our own remotes like we have today. I was my dad's remote. He'd say, son, go change the channel. That was the remote of when I was growing up. Yeah, that's funny. So it really has evolved and I think it's evolved for the better.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I love that, um, this podcast has been flying. I want to talk about some kind of fun side of being a baby boomer, um, while I have you, um so looking back on your time, a lot of those shared experiences that we touched on at the beginning. If you could relive one moment from your time as a baby boomer, like growing up, um, all those decades, what would it be and why would you want to relive that time specifically?

Speaker 2:

I think high school was a lot of fun.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, what decade was that?

Speaker 2:

This was back in the late sixties. That's awesome, that's so cool. Yeah, it was. It was, uh, you know, your whole life evolved around it. Evolved around the sports or the band or the drama, the dramatics, or you know that it was very relatable and I grew up in a small town so the whole town was into it. Yeah, and then once you go there and go to college or move on your own, you don't have that same feeling. So, and I think that's why, if you look at the uh, you know the reunions, I mean my generation is doing their 50 year reunion, 55 year reunion, 60 year.

Speaker 2:

You know high school and a lot of people show up is because it was a time when you were yourself and there wasn't a lot of pressure on you and you didn't have to. You know it, it was, it was true growing up. Yeah, I hope kids are getting that same experience.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, each generation drawing like I said, kind of drawing that line, Cause I so I graduated in 2017, so just a couple of decades apart. But, um, it's fun to think that, yeah, the same idea, where it was like the experience of high school and having that proximity. You're in the same age group, you're all on this, everybody's in the same curriculum, Everybody's on the same path. It's just something that's hard to relive and it's something that it's a cool thing that we can connect generation to generation, like those fundamental early memories of life. Even though the circumstances or like the, the trends of the time are different, the concept, or like the feelings I think are can have a lot of kind of um, similarities, Um, what is so? We talked a little bit about grandkids and how you have a secret favorite grandkid, Just kidding. What's your favorite memory with your grandchildren? And then how would you say being a grandfather and kind of, getting to this stage of your life has influenced your perspective on life?

Speaker 2:

My book I Don't Want to Turn Three is a true story. Look, I don't want to turn. Three is a true story. It's about my six grandkids. That's awesome.

Speaker 2:

And there was one of them was turning three and he was kind of a real devil. He was stealing all his other grandkids' toys and they finally discovered it. The oldest grandchild, who was running a campaign in her school about giving to the homeless, talked to all the other kids into giving all the presents, all the kids to stuff, to the homeless kids. Oh wow. But so it's a true story and so it's been fun to watch these kids because they're all in it. Again, everything's based on pictures I've taken of the kids and then we had an artist go in and make it into it, so they are all part of it, so they kind of they call it their book, yeah, and so every once in a while, like you know, during the holiday season, I saw the oldest grandchild grab a couple of the younger ones and they went underneath my desk for some reason and they're reading the book to each other.

Speaker 1:

That's me I did that.

Speaker 2:

That's me. So if you talk about memories, that's what will stick with me.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I love that there was a study done about I can't remember the sample size, but they talked to people that were in their later years, some people literally on their deathbed, some people retiring and losing that 40 to 60 hour a week employment that gave them purpose for so many decades, and they were asking what was the most important thing or what do you regret? And a lot of the time it was things like that, like I didn't make enough memories during my working years or, like you know, those are the things that actually have mattered. When they talk about it, they're not like oh my gosh, we crushed last quarter. We crushed the quarter back in 1994. It was unreal. Like that's not what they're talking about. Um, so that is really cool.

Speaker 1:

And then something else I wanted to touch on. You talked about, like you said, your so my grandpa's from, I think it's the silent generation or something. He was right on the tail end of the great depression is when he was born. So yeah, he prides himself. I'm a Scottish penny pincher and like, so disciplined, um, so how was your upbringing kind of being raised by that generation?

Speaker 1:

How did it shape the way you view parenting and grandparenting in today's world? I think it's admirable where, generation to generation, there's things that, like I said, we learned. You know, chasing your kid around the house with a belt to cause fear isn't probably the best way to grow love and discipline, and so it's admirable that every generation learns and makes changes. So that way you know me, with a three-year-old that sometimes I wish I could chase around the house with a belt I'm correcting differently. So how would you say that your upbringing shaped the way that you view parenting and then, specifically, grandparenting, now that you get to get to just, uh, rent out the kids and return them to the parents at the end, when I was growing up, there was a lot of love in my family, and when I say that is, we live in a small town and my mother's brothers lived in a big town but, every weekend we would either go to their town or they come to our, and we would always be together.

Speaker 2:

So it was a family experience, even though they all were very disciplined. I mean, I had a lot of great cousins, but you could see that the parents were on top of them to watch them, make sure they didn't get out of line. So if I was to grab anything that I learned from my parents and my family is it's important to show love, and in today's world we don't do that. That's awesome Single parents, divorces, all kinds of reasons but among everything else, what you got to show is that the child is included, is loved, is appreciated. You know because, again, you know, it's part of teaching them how to think, you know if they see around you that there's a lot of respect and love among the peers and family.

Speaker 2:

They're going to take that on, whether they know it or not. It's going to be being breded in them whether they know it or not. It's going to be being breaded in them whether they know it or not. So I think that's probably the greatest thing that I learned from my parents generation is they're very tight-knit, you know, and again, going through all that stuff they had to go through, I think that's one of the reasons they were so tight-knit. Yeah, you know, they saw that.

Speaker 1:

You know we got to live for today because you never know what tomorrow's going to bring yeah, I love that lesson, um Living with love, kind of leading with love, and then, like I said, that tight knit community of family I think is so valuable. I actually grew up on my great grandpa or something bought a bunch of property and then he partialed it out to his kids. So I grew up with a bunch of cousins and second cousins on my street and it was that tight knit like potlucks very regularly. Um, so it is cool to see kind of those crossovers. Like you said, it's like we're on different parts of the world or different parts of the country, but like the experience because it was led by my grandpa, you know same similar experiences because they're of the same generation. But we're coming close on time. What do you see as some of the biggest challenges and opportunities that baby boomers are facing in the coming years as you guys continue to age and influence the younger generation?

Speaker 2:

I think one of the things that we've got to stay on top of is technology. Okay, our generation, although you know you think about it, we've grown accustomed to it, but but you know, it is our way of communicating with everybody else, whether we want to or not. Yeah, like it or we don't like it, so, so our biggest challenge is to make sure that we're staying up. You know that we're part of the Facebook community. As long as it's around, we got to be part of all that kind of stuff and so, again, it's not how we grew up. I mean, I didn't get onto the computer until I was 40 years old. That's crazy. It's a whole different world. Yeah, and it's the evolution of this country and the evolution of the generations. So we have just got to make sure that we make the effort. You know, as you think about it, as people grow older, you assume they want the younger people to come to them.

Speaker 2:

We got to reach out to them. You know, that's how we're going to be isolated if we're not out there reaching out and not just depending on everybody else to come to us, and so that's what we have to do we have to make sure we share our experiences, leave our legacy and keep communicating.

Speaker 1:

I love that. What's one piece of advice you'd give the younger generation about aging? Well, I loved your lesson on leading with love, but specifically on how to age, what, what advice do you have for people like me?

Speaker 2:

It goes back to when, when I was growing up and my my dad used to take me camping. That's awesome. One thing that he said to me that has been with me forever is leave the campsite better than you found it. Okay. So, if we can interpret that, because it's not just for camping leave the campsite better than you found it. That's my advice for everybody that is listening is try to improve upon where you are today, not only for yourself, but those around you and the younger generations.

Speaker 1:

Love that. Are there any upcoming kind of projects or initiative for babyboomerorg that you're excited about or want to announce? Talk about, oh, we're growing.

Speaker 2:

We want everybody to get involved. Again, even though we're called babyboomerorg, you don't have to be a babyboomer to come onto our site. I would encourage everyone to join us because this year we're going to be creating shared communities. So if you like certain things, if you're a pickleball player, we'll have a whole area for that. You become. Talk to people Because, again, when I was growing up, most of my relatives were around where I am, where, now that I'm older and my kids are growing up, they're all over the country, so it's a different kind of thing.

Speaker 2:

It's not like you're down the street and you can talk to people and be part of that, you know. So we're going to be creating lots of communities within our community for people with the with the like same interests to to get together and talk and to to really share their experiences. So I encourage everyone listening just come on, join us. You know, it's free, just join us.

Speaker 1:

Awesome, I love that last shout out when can I buy? I don't want to turn three, I want to buy it. Read it to my boy, go right to.

Speaker 2:

Amazoncom. It's the easiest way to do it, or you can come to, but that's probably the fastest way to do it Awesome.

Speaker 1:

And then I know you're on LinkedIn. If anybody wanted to talk to you or somebody on your team about being a contributor for babyboomerorg, who should they reach out?

Speaker 2:

to yeah. Go to Gramps Jeffrey G-R-A-M-P-S-J-E-F-F-R-E-Y at gmailcom. Perfect, okay.

Speaker 1:

Okay, well, thanks so much, mark, and it was really a great conversation. I just really have enjoyed the last half hour talking to you.

Speaker 2:

You got it. I appreciate the invitation.

Speaker 1:

Thanks.