Announcer: 0:07

Welcome to Aging with Purpose and Passion, the podcast designed to inspire your greatness and thrive through life. Get ready to conquer your fears. Here's your host, psychotherapist, coach, and empowerment expert, Beverley Glazer.

Beverley Glazer: 0:34

What happens when you soared in the dot-com era and then lose it all, your career, your finances, and your marriage? And how do you find the courage to reinvent yourself? Welcome to Aging with Purpose and Passion. I'm Beverley Glazer, a catalyst for women who are ready to raise the bar in their own life. And you can find me on reInventimpossible.com. Renee Balcom is the founder and CEO of Squirrel Care, a platform for caring needs through every stage of life. With more than 15 years of experience guiding families through health care and long-term care planning, Renee is on a mission to bring trust, transparency, and humanity back into caregiving. A seasoned entrepreneur, a healthcare advocate, and a grandmother. She's passionate about putting humanity first in the system, and often a system that feels very, very transactional. Her incredible story will inspire you to overcome your challenges to keep listening. Welcome, Renee.

Renee Balcom: 1:44

Thank you, Beverly. Thank you so much for having me. And I'm grateful for your audience listening. And I also appreciate you mentioning three of my favorite things, and that is being an entrepreneur and my kids, my grandkids. So it's fun, fun, fun to be a grandmother.

Beverley Glazer: 2:00

It sure is. Renee, take us back to the dot-com era. You were not a grandmother there. You were lying. You were a woman in tech, and you didn't even realize you were in tech back then. So tell us what that was that all about.

Renee Balcom: 2:17

Well, listen, most of us can remember back in the day when, you know, there was no such thing as a laptop computer or even a desktop computer, and certainly not cell phones. And we were all, if we were working, we were operating on mainframe computers and offices, right? And legacy systems that were customized for our offices. So I landed in Silicon Valley in um 1978. Yeah, 78. And back then we just didn't, we didn't even know it was Silicon Valley. We didn't know what Silicon Valley was, we didn't know what tech was, but it was this burgeoning industry that frankly I can remember when I got there. And I I left Missouri uh when I was 20 and headed to California. And the way I even landed in the Bay Area was I ran out of money, so I had to get a job, right? And the one ads were three inches thick at the time, and so just about anyone could get a job there. And so I took a job um as a Twix girl, and some of us will remember that. I was literally had a position where I was in a padded room sending Twix messages, like teletype messages to vendors in you know, Japan and in other countries. And so literally it was a broom closet that they put padding on the walls, and I lived in a padded room all day. So that was how I started. And within 10 years, I was a CEO. And, you know, there's there's that that saying that a rising tide rises all boats, right? And perhaps that was part of my success, but I like to think that my success was just putting my head down, becoming part of the solution, and just learning everything I could learn about an industry that I fell in love with. So I was it was the time of my life. I will forever be grateful for that experience and for the ride that it took me. I came out of um abject poverty in the Midwest and um, you know, ended up within 10 years making more money than my collective family combined. That solved a lot of family problems, and I was able to really uh work at leaving a legacy for my family during that time. And, you know, it was just such an experience. I traveled all over the world, I got to fly first class. I mean, there were it was just unbelievable. And suddenly I found myself living a life that, to be honest with you, I had never even dreamed of because I didn't even realize it existed, right? And here I am. The other thing that was fascinating about that time is there were very, very few women in the technology industry back then. It was predominantly uh dominated by uh male engineers. Um, but but they also needed the work that I did specifically was they needed someone that wasn't necessarily an engineer, could communicate with the engineers and then bring down the technology into layman terms because what we see today in technology has evolved, right? But back in those days, to be able to communicate at a technical level was almost impossible for the layman. So part of my work was actually, I worked primarily in marketing and marketing technology, and that job meant bringing down high-level thinking and bringing it into a space where most of us could understand it. So it was a great, great learning experience. I did have a couple of mentors, I want to say, that you know, championed me along the way and really saw potential in me. And then I just worked hard. I I was one of those people that would sit on my bed, you know, on Sunday night waiting for Monday morning to come because I loved the job. I loved the work I was doing. So I was very committed and spent my 20s very, very uh committed to that work.

Beverley Glazer: 6:05

And and you were flying everywhere, you were in a leadership role, and you were a CEO. What did you want to quit?

Renee Balcom: 6:13

So I became a CEO in my 30s, early 30s, and um and we had uh division in Northern California, Southern California, Puerto Rico, and we were opening a division in Shenzhen, China, because at that time everything was kind of moving offshore in manufacturing for tech. Um, I found myself on long plane trips, you can imagine, coming in and out of China. Um, at this point, I had two children, and my mother was a full-time caregiver living in our home, taking care of our kids. But so I was had this sense of being torn. And what more importantly, Beverly, and you know, I'm proud of myself because I was kind of an early adopter to this idea. I also felt my moral compass really spinning about what I was seeing in China, right? I I really was compelled to try to understand why we would be handing our technology, beloved technology that again I was an infant with, and suddenly we're handing it to a communist government. And and I could see clearly with my own eyes what was going to happen and what was happening in China. So, so on those trips, I just started realizing that the time may have come for me to slow down, get off an airplane, because I was gone a few weeks a month, get off an airplane and focus with my kids. At that time, my kids were six and seven years old. You know, that's almost out of the house, right? Not much longer. They're in school and high school and they're off on their way, right? So I, and I had always been able to compartmentalize my work. I could, when I was at work, I was at work. When I was at home, I was at home. But I was gone a lot. So, so there were big gaps in that. So, so I really felt that I needed to make a change and uh decided to leave Silicon Valley and buy a small company. I hired a business broker and and went about the task of finding a little company I wanted to buy, in tech, by the way, still in technology, and bought a company in Southwest Oregon in a county called Curry County, Oregon. So, for those of your listeners that aren't familiar with Oregon, if you go up the 101 highway up California into the coast, 101 will take you from Mexico to Canada. You take Highway 101, as soon as you cross the border leading California into Oregon, now you're in Curry County, Oregon, and that's where I bought my business. And for those of you who have been there, it you know it's spectacular to the eye. You're right on the ocean, it's just beautiful. And for those of you that haven't looked up, Google it because it's spectacular. So um, so I got there, I loved it. Uh, we bought this business, um, and we landed in Brookings, Oregon the Friday before 9-11. And and I tend to, and we, it was a very fast transaction, but we did feel we did our due diligence and we had done all of the work we needed to do. Um, I spent five and a half million dollars on this business and um and felt I was making, you know, had made a good business decision. My husband had left his job. My so we moved my whole tribe, right? My mom, my husband, my kids, my brother and his wife, and a few of my employees uh came with us. So so we landed the Friday before 9-11. And of course, 9-11 happened that following Tuesday, and the world started changing pretty rapidly. So I did not get into the office until that Thursday, two days after 9-11. And when I did, I discovered that I had purchased a shell company. So it was a complete scam, and there really just wasn't anything there. And so um, so you know, it was hurtful, right? I spent a lot of wakeless hours, you know, um uh looking at myself and examining myself and thinking, how in the world did I get here? Right? What did I miss? I mean, you really, it's kind of an interesting phenomena. And and I've met several people that have been caught up in scams. And you really, the way that affects you psychologically, you play back over and over and over the steps that were taken. And how did that, what did I miss? What were the signs? What were the flags? And in hindsight, it took a couple of years, but in hindsight, there were flags. I want to be open about that, you know. So, so I also want to say that we're so eager and excited about new opportunities in our life. And sometimes when our gut or there's a flag, we we tend to ignore it and just think, oh, you know, I'm overthinking, right? Well, you know, cautionary tale. If you if your gut says look closer, look closer. Right. Oh yeah. And my ex-husband and I have had long discussions about that. We're great friends to this day, and we both saw the flags at the same time, which was interesting in hindsight, right? But neither one of us wanted to squelch the other one. So we just put our concerns away, tucked it away, and moved forward. So, you know, lesson learned, check that box, right? Um, and then and then we were off to building. I mean, my ego is involved. I had been very successful in Silicon Valley, I was well connected, and I thought, I'll just build, I'll tell, take this shell company and build a company, right? I still have yeah, I mean, I I know people, right? I I got a little clout, right? Right. So that's what we went about doing. And you know, we pulled uh money out of properties we owned in Silicon Valley because I was doing very, very well in Silicon Valley. So we had invested nicely, and so we just started pulling money and putting it into this company, and then the dot-com bust happened, and then the mortgage uh uh community flipped over. Most of us can still remember that, right? And and you know, you know, not to sound profane, but all hell broke loose, right? Some people jumped off of buildings during that time, and you know, it was a really, really big crisis period in our nation, and um, and we were definitely dead center of a lot of those concerns. So, um, so a couple of things occurred during that time. Um, we had to bankrupt and we sold everything we had, my home, my mother, we had bought my mother a home. Uh, we ended up selling, liquidating everything. The court had requested that. And we also um ended up surrendering our marriage and just deciding we, you know, again, hindsight's perfect. Today we look back and realize we just weren't mature enough to deal with, you know, the process we were going through. Um, but we decided to end our marriage and go in different directions. Now, by this time, my kids, because we're we're kind of five years in now, right? My kids are thriving, they're loving this community, they're doing really well. So, you know, again, that's the silver lining, right? We we moved there with an objective, and that objective was to raise our children in a different space and and see them thrive differently. And and we were successful with that. So, so again, you know, another lesson learned is always look for the good in the bad. There is good in the bad, find that silver lining and understand, you know, because you we can get so caught up in the in looking backwards that we're not looking forward, right? So if we can look, get out of the rearview mirror and look forward and see what's actually going on around us. Um, we I was seeing great things for my kids and for my family. Now, for me personally, it was a big, big shift. Renee had to get a job. And so I did, I applied, and it had been a long, long time before since I had applied for jobs. When I worked in Silicon Valley, I only worked for two companies in the entire time I was in Silicon Valley. So, so for me to like interview for a job and go get a job, um, my first job was with Chase Manhattan Bank. Very, very regulated. Anyone that's worked in banking, it's very regulated. I had no idea. Now keep in mind, I came out of freewheeling Silicon Valley into a very regulated environment. You can imagine that I failed, right? And I did fail. I was not a good employee in a heavily regulated environment. Um, and but you know, when Andy and I separated, I needed to really be able to take care of my kids. And the best job that I got was as a bingo caller. And the worst, I know people ask me all the time, how do you go from I I literally was buying a car, a used car, and the salesman came or the finance guy came to me and sat down and he goes, What happened to you? Because he was looking at my finances, and that was a little, right? That was a little jab. And my response to him was life happened, it happens to everyone, you know. And and some would say that that's a proud response, and in some ways, I think it is. I think it's a coping response to understand that life does happen. And and one of my favorite sayings is, you know, you're going through something. And that was what I kept clinging to was that I was going through some things, but when you're going through something, that means you're gonna get out on the other side of it, right? So if you just keep understanding that this storm will pass, this time will pass, and you're gonna move through time. And again, I don't want to present platitudes to the audience, and but but it's just really true. If you can put your head down, find grace, find um a space of uh contentment in whatever space that is, then you just keep moving forward. And I gotta tell you, being a bingo caller is a fun job, right? I liked it, it was very different, right? I had definitely come out of the ivory tower where people were telling me what they thought I wanted to hear, and I was hearing people for the first time, really. I think I really was, and and really seeing people for the first time in many, many years and understanding some of the issues and concerns that people have that that I had been so removed from. So, you know, I I tell my kid, my kids are adults now, they're in their early 30s, and um and I and here's one of the great things. My my kids say that they've never seen such resiliency, that I modeled resiliency to them, right? That they that they saw someone just put their head down and go to work, connect the dots as best as I could and just keep going, right?

Beverley Glazer: 16:52

Well let me ask you about that. Uh-huh. For many people though, Renee, they couldn't do that. They would be devastated. How did you just keep going and keep going?

Renee Balcom: 17:04

Well, I certainly don't want anyone to think I wasn't devastated. There were many nights that I would lay in my bed and again playing that reel, trying to figure out what in the heck happened. You know, I remember when my son was getting ready to go to college, and and I had to, when we surrendered our business, our homes, we had to surrender, you know, college funds and all of that, right? In our bankruptcy. So, so here I am filling out paperwork, helping my son fill out paperwork for student loans. I never in my life thought that would occur, right? And it was, and again, you know, full transparency, my ego was sitting right in the middle of that. Like, how in the heck did my and I and I was praying to God, how is my son asked, well, why are we pursuing student loans? What happened? Right. And and you know, but but again, life happens. And I had a really wise woman say to me, and I I just love this. She said, It's unfortunate, but bad things happen to good people. And and you have to just accept that and move forward. There were two two things that I learned, Beverly, that just have I've lived with since. The judge, because we did go to court, we went through the you know, whole cycle, right? The judge said to me, never apologize for not thinking like a criminal. Never beat yourself up because you didn't know, because you don't think that way. And criminals think differently. And this is a professional criminal here. I mean, the man who took my money was sitting eight feet across the aisle from me in front of the same judge, right? He held the door open for me when we left the court. Yes, yes. So, and and you know, unfortunately for him, life has served him for his behavior, you know. 20 years later, you know, I've seen how his behavior has come back to him. Um, and mine, you know, I just again, maybe it's pride. I don't know. I think it's just the fact that I think I think we we if we can just go through the moment and understand that it is a moment and it's a moment in time, and we hang on to our values and who we are. And and again, I wanted to model the best that I could for my children. Their dad wasn't having as good a time as I was. He was really floundering, um, you know, because he didn't know he had a hard time recovering from some of this for many, many years. But so one of us had to show them some resiliency, right? One of us had to model that. Um, and I'm I'm proud as a as their mother now to hear them talk about it and say, gosh, you know, it really gave them the understanding that as life comes at you, you just keep moving forward, right? So that's something that I'm very proud of. Um it was sure. Yeah, it wasn't pre-planned, it just is, you know, who I was emotionally, I guess. I don't know. But but again, I don't want anyone to think it was easy because there were many a lot of anger, a lot of soul searching, a lot of tearful nights, and a lot to be grateful for. I had healthy kids, they were thriving. Um, I had I met my second husband during that time. He's the love of my life, right? I I was 52 years old when I met my husband. Um, frankly, it was the craziest thing because he was flirting with me and I hadn't flirted in a long time, so I didn't even know what that was, right? And we just had the time of our life, right? So, so there were so many wonderful things. And by the way, I met him at the casino that I was calling Bingo at. So there you go. Yeah, I've not been there, I would maybe would never have met him, right? So so just you know, when you when you really just try to connect the dots in life, there it's they're gonna take you down a road that's probably the right road for you, right? For you as an individual.

Beverley Glazer: 21:07

And and you also got into caring from there. Yes. So tell us about that. Here you are now a bingo caller. And now, how did you move forward into caregiving?

Renee Balcom: 21:21

Yeah, so so in uh Brookings, the Brookings area in the casino, most of the bingo uh players are older people, are retirees and and and an older population. So I had an opportunity to get acquainted with um this older kind of population that, you know, Silicon Valley just was made up of 30-year-olds, right? 30 and 40 year olds. So we, you know, it was it was very unusual for me to find myself in the large group of older people. And I was raised by my grandmother. So I have a huge regard and respect of our elders. And I was just raised by a southern lady who, you know, demanded respect as an elder, and that's how I treat our elders. So an opportunity came to me to work as a marketing director for an assisted living company, a fortune company that was trading in the Fortune 1000 that had five residences in uh the Southwest Oregon area. So so I took that job and as and I was still bingo calling because bingo calling was just part-time, right? So I took that job and started working with the aging population and got fired from that job. That's a whole other podcast. So second firing in my life, right? And um, in fact, I I had my my new mother-in-law said to me, Why do you keep getting fired? But but at that point, I had decided, like, I I there's not a lot in Curry County to, you know, hang your hat on. And I wasn't willing to take my kids out of the area they were thriving in. We now we, you know, we were had six more years before they were going away to college. So we were good, right? So I um started this business, and but one day I my phone rang and it was a little man in the community, and he said, Hey, I've heard you talk. I'm not yeah, you're not, I'm not, I don't want you to move me into one of those places. I'm not gonna do that, but I want you to go to the doctor with me. And I was like, Okay. And and he said, and he told me his problem, and he felt like he wasn't being seen and heard by the doctor, and he had some things he wanted to meet with the doctor with. And he said, and I'll pay you to do it, but I want you to help me. So I went and sat with him and listened to him, and lo and behold, he did have some concerns that needed to be heard. And but I also could see that within his home, he was 87 years old, living independently, that he had some obstacles in compliance as well, and that the doctor should probably be aware of that. So I took him, we made an appointment, went and saw the doctor, had a great interaction and communication, and um, and then took him home. By the way, he remained my client until he passed at the age of 94. So I worked with this man for several years as his health care advocate. But then my phone started ringing, and the doctor's office is calling me saying, Hey, we have someone else we think you can help. We have someone else we think you can. And in five years, I had 39 healthcare advocates serving five counties in Southwest Oregon. So, you know, and and at one point in the very beginning, I thought, what do you even call this? What is this, right? So I started researching, and lo and behold, it was this thing called health care advocacy. And um, and interestingly enough, we were very successful at it. We had a state contract in Southwest Oregon, and the governor got wind. And I I also at that time we didn't have a public health or mental health department in Curry County, Oregon. So I was a founding director for mental health and public health department. And again, I I kind of functioned through the lens of a CEO. So I could just see these things that we needed to put together, and my business started growing and at really rapid rates. And the governor seated me on a on a council and I wrote the scope of work for health care advocacy for the state of Oregon and pushed that through the legislature. And so I was gaining this notoriety for being this health care advocate, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it was it and it was very exciting, right? It's, I promise you, um, when you are coming alongside with people that need better help, and when you are working with them, there's a moment in time, especially I particularly worked with behavioral health, cognitive impairment, and mental health disease. When you're when you're a voice for the people that are marginalized and are not being heard, there's a moment that they look at you, there's an expression on their face that I swear you're looking into the face of God. That they're so grateful and so generous in their gratitude that there's nothing like it. And there was nothing like it in my career prior to that moment. And they're that from that first time that's happened. It's it's, you know, for anyone in your audience that's trying to find their space and you know, where do I get some self-satisfaction? I promise you, if you come alongside of someone, ever you're wherever your passion leads you, whether it's helping people learn how to paint, whether it's, you know, reading to them, whether it's being a caregiver, whatever that is, right? Nothing changes that moment when you find that space. And and there's that sense of humanity that happens in that moment. It sparks something that nothing will ever replace. And I don't care how much money you make, I don't care. And I'm the top of the mountain and back in the valley and back to the top. So I know what that looks like. And it's in that moment, nothing else changes.

Beverley Glazer: 27:00

Yes, and I agree with you 100%. That's why I've been mental health for many, many years, almost 40. I I agree with you 100%. Helping helps you. Yeah. And that's a complete platitude for sure, but it's so true.

Renee Balcom: 27:16

Yeah.

Beverley Glazer: 27:16

Let's go right back to fast forward today, school care. Tell us about that.

Renee Balcom: 27:22

Well, thank you. Thank you for asking. So, so during this time, of course, I'm heavily involved in care and in the care business and working with clients. And but but my mind kept saying, where is tech in all this? Like, where is technology? What's going on in tech with this care industry? And the care industry is a multi-trillion dollar industry. When I'm talking about care, I'm talking about anyone that enters your ecosystem under the guise of care, pet care, you know, home care, personal care. Anyone that comes into your life and takes your money in some kind of care circumstance is in that care continuum, right? And it's a multi, multi-trillion dollar industry and very heavily unregulated. So there's a lot of people that hang shingles and say they're in care and they don't know a thing about care. So I'm working with families and I'm hearing all of these issues, and I'm watching families enter into the care systems in crisis and making decisions that, if they had knowledge, you know, real knowledge and really real understanding of what they were doing, they wouldn't make that decision. So my brain kept going back to tech. And I decided I needed to come back to California, and I drug my native Oregonian husband to California. And uh, you know, I I wasn't in California two weeks when Sacramento State University reached out and said, Hey, we we have heard you're here. We would like you to write the curriculum for us for this for our students. So I took a job at SAC State, wrote a curriculum, taught there for two years. And then when the pandemic hit, my phone started ringing for health care advocacy. People were in crisis, they needed help, they didn't know how to navigate these systems. So I hung a shingle and started doing health care advocacy. And but but with my with the work I did at SAC State, I had a great entree into the medical and the care industry in Sacramento. And so it helped me kind of develop my thesis for this technology that I wanted to develop. And uh two years ago, I pulled the trigger and we started uh the development and the and writing the technology that is now scroll.care. And we released it in January of this year. And and I want you to think of Scroll that, you know, as consumers, we've all adopted kind of the single gateway marketplace, right? We go into Amazon and we so we've all kind of are doing more and more online purchasing, and we're usually doing that through a what's called a single gateway. So I wanted a single gateway marketplace for care providers. And when I say care providers, it's that whole spectrum I was just talking about, right? But my providers are all 100% vetted. So we background check every single provider. Anyone we would send into your life under with any kind of care services have been fully background checked, not just in the US, but internationally as well. So we stand behind every provider that we put out into the ecosystem, right? And we launched in January, went live in January in the greater Sacramento area. We're still really focused in Sacramento. We're working to get 500 providers on the app in Sacramento. Once we do that, that's kind of the math that I've worked out that is going to be the math we're going to use as we navigate across the country and into other major areas. So we're hoping to be able to scale the company within the next 12 months and get it into the community you're in.

Beverley Glazer: 31:01

So how exciting. So what people that are just looking for care, any kind of care, can go into the app, find the type of care and the education, I might add, because you also have an educational component. Find what you need. All these professionals have been vetted. And so it's a safe space, not only to employ people, but to get education and to keep learning. And you're building that right now, and it's going to be out there for all of us. That's so wonderful, Renee.

Renee Balcom: 31:32

Let me add to that, because I think this is it's a passion of mine. It was so important to me that we would have culturally correct care because, you know, different cultures, different religions have a different, you know, code of conduct within their homes and in their expectations of care. I took care of my mother through the end of her life, and my neighbor took care of her mother. Now my neighbor's East Indian. And the care going on in that home across the street from me was very different than the care going on in my home. And that really alerted me, as also as a healthcare advocate, alerted, alerted me to the necessity for culturally correct care. So Scroll speaks 15 languages. We're working really hard to make certain that we have all the cultural correctness that we can. We'll continue to pursue that. It's a little, another layer of complexity, but it's but it's a good one. It's the right one. And the biggest thing, you know, people ask me, like, so are and you can speak into the app and say, you know, I'm going to have a knee replacement surgery. Can you help me write a pre pre-surgical care plan and a post-surgical care plan? Like, who's going to take care of me? How am I going to navigate the stairs? What, what kind of help do I need? And the apple actually start helping you write a care plan and then directing you to those providers that can help you. The other thing that I'm very sensitive to, we never sell anyone's information. We don't blast you out to everyone. You, the consumer has control. We simply introduce you to these providers and you get to choose who you want to speak to. We never interface with that. We allow the consumer to control that. I think that's really important. We do full profile. So when you look at our providers, you can see all about them. But I've, you know, I've seen families just put their name out on services and they're bombarded with sales calls. I find that offensive and I don't want to do that to anyone. So, you know, we just really wanted to provide this marketplace service so that people understood. And as you mentioned, it's all about um education and empowerment. One of one of the every industry has its own language, right? And, you know, when I first started doing this work and I was working with fiduciaries, I had to be honest with you. I was like, what do these people actually do? Like what is their purpose, right? And and I'm assuming, you know, I always say I'm from Missouri, so you know, I'm pretty middle of the road. So I figure if I'm wondering, then a lot of us are wondering, right? So you can go into scroll and you can key up fiduciary, and there's a video, a masterclass, 15 minutes that tells you all about fiduciary, what their licensing requirements are, what you should know as a consumer, how to navigate through that interview, how to choose a fiduciary, or any other category, right? So so we are just about empowerment and enabling the consumer to make you know educated decisions and really be able to make critical decisions that they they have real solutions to.

Beverley Glazer: 34:37

Terrific. Absolutely terrific. Renee, one last question. What would you tell a woman who has fallen, literally been kicked in the head, and says, I cannot go forward. There's nothing for me. It's too late. What would you tell someone like that?

Renee Balcom: 34:56

Well, first of all, I believe, and I've worked with lots of people well into their 90s, right? I believe that if you are still breathing air, then there's something for you. There's a contribution for you to make. And that you have a responsibility to that contribution. And it may just be sitting and sharing your experience, right? It may be, you know, listen, as we age, we take, we have a 40,000 mile point of view that the younger, the people younger than us need to know about, right? And so I so I just feel like there is a space of wisdom and a space that space of knowledge. And for that person that just feels beat up, like I don't know that I can go any further, you know, I I would say I I always talk about transitioning from a CEO to a bingo caller, right? And even to owning my own business. And I remember sitting and writing out what I felt like my gifts and talents were and what was transferable. I took, wrote everything out that I felt like I had a gift for. And then I took a highlighter and highlighted what I felt like was transferable. And then I took that information and started writing out what I was passionate about. And listen, there were some things that I discovered I'm passionate about that I didn't even know I was passionate about until I learned about it, right? And so, but but each life will give us cues, Beverly. And if we're open to that cueing, if we're really listening and if we're looking at ourselves, I believe the answers sit right with us, right? We just have to sit quietly, shut down the noise, and really examine ourselves. And for me, that means writing it down, right? I have to, I have to express myself, you know. I take a pen and pad and I just start writing, right? Um, for some people, they're gonna, it's gonna come up differently. But if we take the time, it's there. I promise you, it's there. And I don't think there's an age limit on that. I don't think it stops at an age. I had a lady that we took care of. She was so sweet. Her name was Hatie. Hatie was legally blind. Hatie um she was such a character. She didn't like to get up early in the morning, right? She liked she wanted to sleep till 11. She goes, I've waited my whole life to sleep till 11. Don't wake me up before 11, right? But interestingly enough, she led a walking group every day. She led a walking group, right? And her quality of life and she had it had meaning in helping people, you know, get up. She's like, get up at noon. We're not gonna walk till one o'clock, right? But she she led this group. And it was amazing how many people would walk with Haiti because they knew she was walking. And she started out just her and a neighbor, and the next thing you know, there's 10 people walking with this lady, right? So, so again, that whatever it is, I mean, for some people it's art, for some people it's cooking, for some people, it's you know, taking care of an animal or a loved one or a neighbor. I mean, there's that opportunity is all around us. We just have to be open to it. And and I yeah, the the what the richness in life, the real richness in life is in that those opportunities.

Beverley Glazer: 38:10

Perfect. So just find your passion, find something that you really, really have an interest in and say nothing negative, just kind of go with it. Thank you, thank you, Renee. Thank you. Thank you. So inspiring, so very inspiring. Renee Bouncon is the founder and CEO of Scroll Care. This is a platform to access caregiving through every stage of life. With more than 15 years of experience guiding families through the healthcare and long-term care planning, Renee is on a mission to bring trust, transparency, and humanity back into healthcare. A seasoned entrepreneur, a healthcare advocate, and a grandmother. She's passionate about giving humanity, putting that first, putting that humanity and love. I'm going to add that because when you listen to Renee, you will see that there's so much sincerity into what she's doing. Because this is a system that can feel very, very transactional. Here are a few takeaways from this episode. That wrong turn in the road can lead you to a new purpose. Resilience is built when you choose not to quit. Reinvention is not about starting over, it's about carrying your wisdom forward in a new way. And if you've been relating to this episode, here's some quick actions that you could take for yourself right now. Write down one area in your life that's asking for a fresh start. And they take one little small step to get there. Keep saying yes to opportunities that feel just a little bit uncomfortable. They may be holding a surprising lesson and take one small step towards something that you've been putting off until tomorrow. Do that for a similar episode on caring and reinvention. Check out episode 141 of Aging with Purpose and Passion. And if you've enjoyed podcasts for women in midlife and beyond, the Late Bloomer Living Podcast is your weekly invitation to embrace change, spark joy, and live playfully at any age. Yvonne Marchez talks to inspiring guests who share practical real-world tips. And that link will be in the show notes below. And so, Renee, where can people learn more about you and get more information? Please, please share your link so we can understand and see Scroll Pierre in action.

Renee Balcom: 40:47

That's great. Well, thank you for that. Um, you can reach me on any social media outlet at Renee R-E-N-E-E Falcom B-A-L-C-O-M. Scroll.care is also out on every outlet. Um, you can reach me directly um at Renee R-E-N-E-E at scroll.care. That's my direct email. I'm happy to assist anyone that may have a question in maybe their health journey and their medical journey. I'm happy to provide some information on how they can navigate that. And my my direct phone number is 541-661-2369, and you can call me there. So I I just appreciate so much being here with you, Beverly and your audience. And I look forward to us talking again. I'll keep giving you updates as in the progress we're making, but it's a very, very exciting journey.

Beverley Glazer: 41:39

Yes, I'd love that. All Renee's links are going to be in the show notes, and they're also going to be on my site too. That's reinventedpossible.com. And so, my friends, what's next for you? Are you just going through the motions or are you living the life that you truly love? Get my free guide to go from stuck to unstoppable. And where do you think that is? That's in the show notes too. You can connect with me, Beverly Glazer, on all social media platforms and in my positive group of women on Facebook. That's WomenOver50 Rock. And thank you for listening. Have you enjoyed this conversation? Please subscribe and help us share the word by dropping a review and sending it to a friend. And remember, you only have one life, so live it with purpose and passion.

Announcer: 42:38

Thank you for joining us. You can connect with Bev on her website, reinventimpossible.com. And while you're there, join our newsletter. Subscribe so you don't miss an episode. Until next time, keep aging with purpose and passion. And celebrate life.