A father’s story impacted one adult daughter’s career trajectory. BTG Ambassador and CEO and Founder of Utopia Experiences, Sasha Dawn shares her story.

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This episode was recorded at ASHA Mid-Year Meeting.

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Welcome to season six of Bridge The Gap, a podcast dedicated to informing, educating, and influencing the future of housing and services for seniors. Powered by sponsors Accushield, Aline, Hamilton CapTel, Service Master, Patriot Angels, The Bridge Group Construction and Solinity. The contributors are brought to you by Peak Senior Living and produced by Solinity Marketing.

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Lucas 00:52

Welcome to Bridge The Gap podcast, the senior living podcast with Josh and Lucas here at the Summer retreat membership meeting for ASHA in Utah. A beautiful, actually a scale or spectrum of weather. We've had rain, we've had sun, we've seen some snow, and today we have sunshine. It's a beautiful day.

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Sasha 1:11

Beautiful outside.

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Lucas 1:12

It is. And the voice that you're hearing right there is our great guest, going to welcome Sasha Dawn. She's the founder of Utopia Experiences. Welcome to the show.

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Sasha 1:20

Thank you. Thank you so much, both of you for having me. It is a real pleasure to be here. I've been a fan for as long as I have been around and just really honored to be here.

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Lucas 1:28

Oh, it's so great. So great. And a Bridge The Gap Ambassador, one of 50, 60 people that are out there growing the Bridge The Gap mission to educate and inform and influence the senior living industry that we all love and we want to see improved. And so Sasha, you have an incredible founder story. You're actually very new to the industry, but you're one of the most passionate people about this industry in a very short time. Why is that?

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Sasha 1:54

I fell into it by accident, honestly. I mean, and I think the more I tell my story, the more vulnerable I get with my story, the less alone I feel. And I realize we all have a story as to why we're here. And so let me first say to the two of you, it's an honor to be here with you because while I don't know what brought you here, I know it's a story of passion, compassion, and alms giving to give back and Bridge The Gap is such a great theme and such a true to my heart because I saw a void in my own father and in my own life. My story was 2020 during quarantine. I guess the backstory is I'm a daddy's girl. My father is a Vietnam War hero. He was in the US Army Green Beret, Special Forces Paratrooper, just a real badass.

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Lucas 2:37

Yes. Sounds like it.

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Sasha 2:38

Can we say that?

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Josh 2:39

Yes you can.

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Sasha 2:39

Great, great. Okay. So in his five tours of Vietnam, the third time through he got a purple heart. In his desire to return, it was very hard for him to come back to the states and not feel appreciated and welcomed. And so he went back. He then since retired and in his eighties, living independently during quarantine, my father fell and had a stroke. We were notified by a neighbor, something's wrong with dad and you should call for help. And we did. And we learned that my father, two and a half days earlier, had been in his own fluids for many days near death, and was now in a PTSD episode. Believed he was in a ravine fighting for his life. So they rushed him to the VA hospital and five days later moved him to skilled nursing. Those are words I had not heard. I did not know what an activities director was. Every day the doctors and nurses would give us a wonderful medical update, but really what they were saying is, your dad's dying. You need to plan for his services. So we did. On the 11th day, I met Sue, and Sue is an activities director and she said, "Oh my gosh, I hear your pain. I can set up a FaceTime visit so I could say goodbye to my dad." And I thought, "Wow, Sue." Now I have met hundreds of Sues. So Sue set up a FaceTime visit and I thought this was going to be an opportunity to connect with my dad. It was gonna be really wonderful, and he was going to feel better. And what I saw was all the things, loneliness, depression, isolation. But what changed the trajectory of my life is my dad was scared and I'd never seen fear in my dad's eyes and I couldn't do anything to help him.

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Sasha 4:11

So Sue and I became really good friends because she was the connection to my dad. Some things I learned about Sue, she was overworked, understaffed, underpaid. Sue used her own money to buy the residents ice cream. She hadn't seen her grandchildren in weeks because we were all on lockdown and she chose to serve the residents. So at the time, I also was in lockdown and I was single, living in the mountains in Colorado and playing these silly little games over Zoom, versions of game shows to connect and engage myself and other people to each other. Christmas Eve of 2020, I worked for nine and a half hours and hosted hundreds of people together, playing games to connect themselves. So I said to Sue, let me host this silly little game for you and your grandkids at no charge. Because at the time it was my side hustle, I was making like $200 bucks an hour. So she said, if you're willing to do it for me for free, just could you do it for the residents? And I was like, "Whatever Sue wants." I mean, Sue could be Stewart or Sue or any other activities director, you just want to help them when you can. So I sent her a Zoom link. She put it on four iPads. One was for my dad, two other residents recovering from a stroke. And the fourth was a gentleman, ATV accident, mid thirties now paralyzed from the waist down. So these people hadn't seen anyone without a mask in months. And then there's me, I show up in my yellow game show blazer, a bow in my hair, red lipstick, all things that I don't wear. But when I put that on, it's like my superhero cape. I am an extroverted version of my already extroverted self.

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Sasha 5:41

And I hosted the silly little nostalgic game. I didn't need instructions, we didn't need to be told how or why, but for 30 minutes we cheered each other on, we solved puzzles, we connected. And at the end of it, for the first time in all the games I had played during quarantine, my contestants were all crying. My dad included. I said goodbye. And I closed the computer and I sat back and I thought, "I don't know what this is, but this is what I'm supposed to do." In kindergarten, My teacher, Ms. Whitaker, pat me on the shoulder once. She said, "It's okay, Sasha, you'll be good at something one day." Because I was like, demolishing this, like clay squirrel, find your passion. And here I was almost 50 years old and I'd done a lot of things and made good money, but I never felt like I felt in that moment. So I called my aunt, who worked with old people. That's all I knew about my aunt, but this is who my aunt was. My aunt at the time, now retired, was the president of LeadingAge California. Didn't know what that was. She was the CEO for JHA, which stands for Jewish Home for the Aging, lots of communities. I said, "Hey Aunt Molly, remember that silly little game we played? This is what just happened with my dad." And she said, "Let me help you." She got me in contact with Leading Age experts, chief medical officers. I just started telling my story like I am today and to anyone that would help me. And in this industry, people are willing to help more than any other industry I've worked at, whether it's banking, hospitality, tech, just hear people, see what you're doing. They see your passion and they know the need.

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Sasha 7:20

So we developed a game. We have a game ourselves. It is free from litigation, it's a version of Wheel of Fortune. And that's what we do. We do classic game shows. We are not Fortnite, we are not Wii. We are not the new up and coming tech company. We are reminiscence, we are gamification. And we connect residents to themselves, to the community when they can or cannot come out of a room, when they can or cannot get on a plane and go fly, when their family cannot come in, we can connect them. And so we have this amazing game that is connected and engaged and offers reminiscence. And honestly, as I started playing the game with my dad, he started to get better every day. It was my dad's will to live and it was my dad's fight, but I saw the spark in his eye and even post stroke, I didn't have to remind him how to play. I just said, "Do you wanna spin or solve?" And if he needed help, he could call on a friend next door. And today we have just shy of a hundred customers. We're playing hundreds of games every day. And I'm having the time of my life.

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Josh 8:28

Wow. Well what an amazing story that I think Lucas, maybe you've gotten to hear pieces of that. That's actually my first time and thank you so much for sharing that. There's so many questions I have, but one thing that just resonated with me was, I don't know Sue, but I know a lot of people like Sue and I think we work in an industry that as you, I think mentioned, there's a lot of Sues out there. You mentioned something too of how much many individuals in our industry, especially those activity professionals, I think, I don't know what her title was, but it sounded like she was some level of activity professional, but even paying for things out of their own money and probably if like a lot of activity professionals not making a lot of money and sacrificing a lot to be able to do that, to help make not only an impact in the resident's life, but what I heard a lot there is, I mean the impact she had on your life, the influence now from that one Sue impacting the residents there. But I mean, you just think of that circle of influence of one person that is probably not given a spotlight very often, probably not given a very big budget very often, but so much expectation from that individual. What a cool tool. So what are the other kinds of games that you have found that are really resonating with residents and helping improve engagement?

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Sasha 9:59

Well, we have learned today that residents feel like an afterthought when it comes to technology. So our model for what we are leading the way with senior game therapy is really not teaching them something new, but using the old tools that are comfortable to them to integrate something new. So today we have Spintopia. It took us about a year and a half and blood, sweat and tears. Not really blood, but it feels like it sometimes. But what we do to make it different is it's customized in contrast. So the colors are specific to seniors. We know that a yellow background with black letters is the best contrast. We have done research to make sure the sounds are on par. We don't have the bummer noise. There is no “bankrupt,” it's no fun to lose fake money, but they want to see that they earn money. It's kind of a funny joke. It's all right, it's all right folks. It's not real money. And they're like, "What, what are we doing here?!" But we customize the puzzle. So we have over 5,000 puzzles in our first game, Spintopia, and they're words that matter. So my dad, to bring it full circle, he's living with dementia but has recovered from his stroke and is living in an assisted living community about a half an hour away from me. And they play Spintopia. We have four levels. So we like to say it's only inclusive if everyone can play. So whether it's memory care to independent living, but the puzzles can be meaningful, impactful to them. So as my dad says, "We don't want any Britney Spears, TikTok, BS." We want some good old words. So it's Gomer Pyle words, it's forties and fifties, even though we have that many puzzles, we also have customized puzzles.

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Sasha 11:34

So one of our large customers does a monthly theme, like a 1960s sock hopper or 50 sock hop where they transform their entire buildings into the theme. So we put 120 puzzles in there around that. But if it's your family member's birthday and she can't travel, we can talk about what's important to her, whether it's gardening club or being a sailor, if that was your grandfather or whatever her interests were throughout her life. And we can customize that to be puzzles. And then the last puzzle is happy birthday grandma. And so we have found that, in reminiscence therapy specifically, it is when we put something in there that is meaningful to them when they solve the puzzle or when it's solved by a family member, it organically strikes a conversation. I Zoom with my dad today and he can show up for 10 minutes and tell me his knee hurts and he hasn't left his room and all things "waa waa" but it's honestly because he didn't remember that he got out that day.

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Sasha 12:33

But because I know on Tuesdays he plays Spintopia, I can log on as a virtual audience member and I can watch my dad. I'm working at 10:30, but I can see that my dad is lit up, he's engaged. I don't care if he solved the puzzle. They play in teams so if we were all on a team, we'd all be Team Red for example, and we'd have some red beads on. So I might maybe in a moment forget where I am or what I'm doing, but if they say Red, I can look down and I see I belong, I belong with you. These are my Bridge The Gap friends, and we're going to solve this puzzle together. And it gives me a sense of purpose and meaning. And we find that in communities, whether it's a private game with a family doing therapy without knowing it, connection or connection and engagement and we've hosted for 675 people on a virtual game and we've also played one-on-one. So we are coming out with more games, but right now we feel like we kind of cracked the code in how we serve this industry. We used to just sell access to our game and people would say, "Sasha, your game's so cool, but we have this big labor issue in the industry. Like you're just giving us another cool tool in our belt." And so then we launched UE Live and that's where we hire game hosts. We hire activities directors, we hire stay-at-home moms, improv actors, retired teachers, just incredible human beings. And they get to put their own version of Game Show Blazer on so your community can play against your community. And now there's this competition and there's this like camaraderie within the portfolio of whatever the community is. And we're doing something really cool.

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Josh 14:10

Well, it is really cool. And the journey that's gotten you there, I mean the story you have, I'm still stuck on the beginning of the story, but how far since that moment, and there was a phrase you said you'd never, that moment you saw fear from your dad. And I think a lot of us, we can resonate with that because our parents are the ones that shape things for us oftentimes. And our dads oftentimes are those fearless people. But that moment that you saw him afraid to now, how long are we talking, what's this journey and this timeline been, because you've accomplished a lot, I think in a short amount of time.

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Sasha 14:47

December of 2020 was when he had the stroke and was hospitalized out of state. So I was on the East coast and my father was in Arizona. And so we launched the game a year and a half later, it took us that long to make it, I mean, we're a scrappy little startup and so we move at a slower pace. Took us a year and a half and it took my dad nine months to really get to a position where he could travel. He couldn't be on a plane, he needed medical transport. And that was out of our budget. And so my dad recovered in skilled nursing and then moved to a private home care. But those nine months of his life, he lost that. He has no memory of any of it, but I see him today. I actually just took him to North Carolina to train a customer with me. And he likes to travel, I mean little road trips, but I took him down to North Carolina and we trained the community and I tell the story real quick in a few minutes to the residents and then we play the game. They were like, but "Wait, how's your dad? How's your dad?" And I was like, "Well, as a matter of fact, my dad traveled with me today. He's actually sitting in the back and he's going to hand out the candy because we give out prizes. And he says, "I'm alive, folks, I'm alive." He's joyful and I'm happy to have him with us.

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Josh 15:59

Lucas, you never know a moment when you choose to do something to help someone, what that's gonna create. And I go back to Sue, I'm sure she was just doing what Sue does. Never did she know that she was going to change a patient/resident's life, help them on the recovery battle, probably never had any clue that she would get the thanks for a whole new startup platform that's serving an entire industry and helping people with engagement. And the other thing that I'm hearing from this is that story, how you started that, was very much like not a happy story, as like trauma, but out of that, the beauty that can come from sometimes our worst experiences and our worst moments. And so congratulations on you turning that into something and through your dad's, quite honestly, that struggle moment that helped you find your purpose through that. I know you're helping a lot of people with tools to help them live their purpose. And it's a really cool story. I can't wait, I can't wait to see what all's happening. I'm like, "Where have I been?" I haven't even heard about this. And you're one of our Bridge The Gap ambassadors and you're just out cheerleading the industry all the time and thankful that we can use the platform to share this awesome story.

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Lucas 17:18

We also thank Allison Bonner. She was the catalyst to get this introduction, to bring your story and Utopia Experiences into the Bridge The Gap ecosystem. It's been great to get to know you and kind of see this journey and be a part of also supporting your story and many others.

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Sasha 17:36

Thank you and thank you, Allison. And you're right. I mean, that moment with Sue was pivotal. We all have those moments in our life, whether it's a loss of a parent or the near loss of a parent, a pet, a marriage, we all have them where you are shattered. Somebody said to me as I was shattered, you pick up the pieces and you're like, "Oh gosh, I have to figure out how to put myself back together." And some people don't make it through that struggle. And someone said to me, "Sasha, the only way you're going to get better, those pieces don't serve you anymore. Go out and give those pieces away." And that is the mindset that I move with today. I go with the intent to serve and I go with the intent to give these broken pieces away because they're serving other people just like Sue's served me.

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Josh 18:21

Wow. Awesome. Well, I know our listeners that might not have heard about your story are going to want to connect to you. We're going to do that and we're going to do it through the Bridge The Gap Network.

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Lucas 18:32

That's right. That's right. btgvoice.com. You can go there, you can learn how to become a Bridge The Gap ambassador, just like Sasha. And you can also access this content and so many more to hear these stories about people in our industry to help educate, inform, and influence the senior living industry that we serve, know and love. Connect with us on social. LinkedIn is a great spot to message us, be a part of the conversation. Once this episode is launched, we'd love to hear your residents' story in engagements. We'd love to hear from the Sues out there that are on the front lines of serving seniors and older adults right where they are, keeping them engaged to give them in their lives dignity and enjoyment. Thanks for listening to another great episode of Bridge the Gap.

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19:16

Thanks for listening to Bridge The Gap podcast with Josh and Lucas. Connect with the BTG network team and use your voice to influence the industry by connecting with us at btgvoice.com.