Industry legend, Jack York, Chief Story Teller at Talegate, shares about his life’s motto, passion for telling resident’s stories, and his new venture. Hear how the tech entrepreneur is now living out his desire to feature the senior living industry in new ways. 

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Recorded at the Hamilton CapTel booth at LeadingAge Annual Meeting.

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Produced by Solinity Marketing.

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‍Become a sponsor of Bridge the Gap.

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Listen to more episodes here.

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Intro:

Welcome to season eight of Bridge the Gap, a podcast dedicated to informing, educating and influencing the future of housing and services for seniors. The BTG network is powered by sponsors Accushield, Align, NIC MAP Vision, Procare HR, Sage, Hamilton Capital, ServiceMaster, The Bridge Group Construction and Solinty and produced by Solinity Marketing.

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00:43 - 00:58

Lucas McCurdy

Welcome to Bridge the Gap podcast, the senior Living podcast with Josh and Lucas here in Nashville at the Leading Age National Conference. A lot of energy, some great conversations and a great friend on today. We want to welcome the Talegate man, Jack York, welcome back to the show.

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00:58 - 01:04

Jack York

It is always an honor to be hanging with you guys always, you know, and we never know where it's going to go. That's the joy of our conversation.

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01:04 - 01:05

Lucas McCurdy

It's kind of scary.

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01:05 - 01:08

Jack York

I say thank God for editing. Thank you for it.

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01:08 - 01:33

Lucas McCurdy

Yes, there may be a lot of editing here. So you are the Renaissance man. And, it's the fascinating journey, recent journey that you've been on. I mean, I don't even know where to start with you. Can you just update us? You you spend your weekends living in the woods, hitting plastic golf balls? And then you spend your weeks driving older adults around the country asking them questions. And what what is that?

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01:33 - 06:55

Jack York

Well, I mean, just to kind of frame it a little bit. And you guys have known me for a long time for all that IN2L journey, now LifeLoop days is that in that whole IN2L journey was such a joy. But it it was hard and you never know unless you've started something you don't really know this compartmentalization you have to have of looking good and things are great. We're kicking ass and then you're going home and I go, what am I doing? But my first ten, 15 years of IN2L you know, I plug in my computer and you do a presentation but I had no interaction with the residents, you know, and not that was a good or bad thing. I was legitimately trying to sell a product you'd say hello to a person here or there and it wasn't you were being rude, but it just wasn't impactful. And then when we went through COVID, went through the just the, the transaction that IN2L went through, my heart was just kind of yearning.

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I still am a part of of LifeLoop. I'm happy to be a consultant, but my heart was kind of what's the next passion thing to do? And as is my nickname throughout my life has always been ready, fire, aim. So that's really kind of where this whole Talegate idea comes from. I think you guys know Cheryl Crooks. A lot of people kind of pushed me to do something bigger than I was kind of thinking about. But what it's evolved to is Talegate (T.A.L.E), and it's all about capturing the stories of these remarkable people that all of this stuff is based on. And so, we're trying to make it a business, but it's really more just about, you know, doing something that matters.

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There are three things we're doing. One is we're doing really cool documentary shorts, where we're telling we're at a community for a week and we're telling I don't like telling stories of amenities, I like telling stories of the people that live in the communities, and my marketing message to communities is you're not marketing that. You know, you're marketing cool people are where you want your mom or dad to be hanging out with. And so we love doing these really deep stories. We've done multiple so far. Arrow Senior Living, had us do something about love and senior living where we followed four different couples kind of through their journey.

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So anyway, we're doing really meaningful documentaries as you know, I've learned, that it's a lot more work than I thought it would be on the editing side. So I partnered with Nathan Jones, and Dash Media and it's like, what can we do that's really creative? And so we really had just kind of taken this whole idea of like Carpool Karaoke and the cameras in a van. And I've been going around the country interviewing hundred-year-olds, and it is the whole intention of it was very, you know, very light-hearted. And it's turned out to be the most reflective thing that I have ever gone through, because you're just you're talking to people every week. At the end of the know, it's just a 40-minute drive around their community, and you're hearing World War Two stories.

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You're hearing growing up with no power, no water stories. You're hearing what it was like to be a woman working in a secretarial function that was kind of shoved down their throat and all these different perspectives. And at the end of the day, every single person we've talked to is comfortable that this is the end of their life. And this is and they're grateful for having lived a good, long life. And it just has made everything else that I do or it all of us, to just feel kind of insignificant. Not in a judgmental way, just in a reflective way. I literally go to bed at night thinking about that person that I talked to that night, and there are so many stories that I have to tell you about these, these individual people.

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But they carve out a little, a little place in my heart. So that's then the last thing we're doing with Talegate is Aubrey Rhoden, who you guys both know. She's a great author. And we're writing a book called Crossroads that's capturing 24 stories of people living in senior living and working in senior living. And just that something happened in their life that dramatically shifted their trajectory. And it's fascinating. Sometimes it's tragic the loss of a child, all kinds of things like that. It's other times it's joyful. We interviewed a woman in Ohio and fell in love with her, she had a story from 1950. She had a pen pal in Sicily. She had the nerve to fly, to Sicily on her own, to meet a pen pal that she married and spent seven years with. And so just two months ago, we flew her to Sicily, recreated that entire marriage. We're turning that into a little mini-documentary. And so, anyway, that's a crossroads kind of story.

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But it is, I am just living this life that I could never have imagined. And I'm, I take it I think it was. I don't know which poet. Somebody that there's a poet that I like to take what you do seriously, but don't take yourself too seriously. So, I mean, this is serious stuff we're doing, but it's so joyful, and I love to just be able to, honor these people, 99% of them have never been like they've never had an experience like this. And the fact that somebody cares about what they have to say is, is one of the most remarkable things of the journey. So I've been talking and talking and talking.

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06:55 - 07:27

Josh Crisp

You're known for being able to share some amazing experiences and stories. You've been serving this industry for a long time. We could walk through this giant expo center and probably not, find anybody who doesn't know Jack or hasn't heard about Jack. So appreciate all that you've done. I'm just curious. It sounds like that's been, like, as meaningful or more meaningful to you personally than what you ever thought it would be. What do you hope the takeaway is for others who are seeing the video there?

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07:27 - 10:52

Jack York

Great question. And there are several things. There are several answers the first is with a 100-year-old. And so that what that's called is Vintage Voices 100. That's what we call it. Our partnership with Talegate and Dash media and what I love about that on a visceral level, I love giving the family here's a person's life on an SD card, you know, and you turn that into a 20-minute story of our drive immortalized as the first. But from a global standpoint, I love that 84-year-old, that is still relatively healthy, but is kind of societally conditioned to think, you know what, it's time to wrap it up to see that that lady's 20 years older than I, and she's doing, you know, deep dive stretch bends at the end of a run. It's just changing the narrative of the perception people have of aging. And that's every part of it. And  to your point, you just said, Josh, I think that I honestly think that in my own kind of faith journey, I think everything I have done in my life has been to put me right here to be able to elevate these people.

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And I love social media stuff we do with Nathan. It's got millions of views. It's got tens of thousands of followers. But to me, it's not. You're walking away with the person telling you this last 30 minutes has been the most meaningful thing in the last year that's happened to me. And, and it, so it just it is it's a very visceral, very visceral experience that it's hard to. And I love bringing other people. I mean, you got to join a run. Oh love it. Yeah. We'll just get our calendars going because it really is to hear. And you, you know, you've done a lot of that. You're to your credit, you've done to embrace that as well. But I'm a huge World War II guy. In the last month is a great example of it in Washington DC.

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A gentleman that was the last, surviving member of, I think it's the 740th Tank Battalion in World War II, and he's talking about driving tanks. And last week I interviewed this guy, in Minnesota. He’s German. And it was so interesting getting a German. You know, he's a ten-year-old German kid. Had to wake up every day singing, go to school and sing to Hitler, and sing praises to Hitler. And he was the kid that climbed up on the tank after liberation. And the guys are giving him chocolate that I want to go cook these, you know, recreate, have the guy in the battalion away, give this guy some chocolate. That's what I'm trying to do to vendors. What I'm really challenging vendors. And I don't want to sound judgmental about it. The people you know, you'll spend ten grand to get to sponsor a lunch. You know, you can make that same ten grand, change somebody's life in the documentary, put it together, and get a bunch of views. You'll get so much more of a visual return. And you. Because I just think we all, everybody spends money the same, you know, it's all just this kind of circle that I think needs to change. Just are what you market in this and that. So that's kind of a business. Part of this is to have vendors kind of fund some of these, you know, documentaries that change wishes or whatever. But anyway, as you know, with me tangentially, that was the coolest thing to talk to this German guy and just juxtapose that with the tank guy and they're all going to be gone.

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10:52 - 10:59

Lucas McCurdy

I was going to say there are not much left. This is this is our last chance. It really is. It really is. There's not enough. We can't go back.

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10:59 - 12:23

Jack York

Some of these people are here. They are just kicking ass and like there's a guy this is borderline inappropriate. But since when has that ever bothered me? You have this kind of connotation of aging. I interviewed a guy in new Jersey, 100-year-old, 101-year-old guy in Jersey a couple of months ago. And it's like his wife died when he was 72. And so I'm going through the appropriate level of sympathy. It must have been hard. Well, I met this short redhead, and she was a sexual dynamo. Okay, guys, you know, it all it changes. It's just a different chapter of your life that can be full of angst, just like any other chapter in your life.

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But it can be full of joy, just like any other chapter of life. And I think that's what we're just trending, and we want it. Nathan. I want to take it to like, I love the idea and maybe you guys want to be a part is I love the ideas of getting out of the van and, you know, taking 100 year old to a dispensary, you know, to a biker, do whatever and just get in. Again, it's all just about reframing the narrative of aging and what it can be, and not to deny the realities, but there's enough people talking about the realities that we kind of want to be this aberration, talking about them, you know, let's go. Let's get to on and see. For me personally, I'm 65 and I'm these people are 35 years older than me. So hey, let's let's go.

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12:23 - 12:50

Josh Crisp

Yeah, absolutely. Well, what a cool, opportunity you have and that you've taken advantage of, that all of your experiences in life and work have also led you for this specific time. To be able to do this probably wasn't available. I mean, you probably couldn't have done this 20 years ago and so 2025, what are we going to see more of this? Or are we going to see something a little bit different? What's on your agenda?

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12:50 - 14:14

Jack York

No, I think what's what's happening as look at 25 is that we're doing some really creative documentaries. Some of these things aren't finalized yet, but we think they are going to be like, we want to be. Leading Age, South Dakota is helping us with this. It's the 85th anniversary of Sturgis. Well, the whole bike ride. Yeah. So we're finding an 85 year old man that went to Sturgis in his 20s, and we're going to do a documentary paralleling his 85 years with the Sturgis 85.

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And so really, the documentaries are just getting more and more interesting. And then 100-year-olds, we just want to keep pushing the envelope on it and get it outside of kind of the cocoon of senior living out into the community more and more at large. And most, you know, most of the providers, they you know, everything. We didn't want anything to make fun of anybody or the stereotype we're breaking that we're not. And so everything we do elevates it. So people like being, you know, being a part of it. So and then we want to, our intention is to release this book on July 4th. The crossroads book just kind of a little bit of Americana, of look at these people that have overcome stuff. And my guess is that I don't even know what else I'll be thinking about. So it's just that I'm like a, you know, the ready fire aim people come with ideas. And it's like my first reaction is always to say, yes. And then figure it out later, which has gotten me. It's not always pretty.

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14:14 - 14:15

Lucas McCurdy

You build the plane in the air.

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14:15 - 14:22

Josh Crisp

It's not always pretty, maybe, but it's been great stories and it's led you to great success. And congratulations on that.

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14:23 - 14:37

Lucas McCurdy

Yes, yes, we love this. So, looking forward to that. You know, Jack, and we would we would take your invitation to become a part of whatever you're doing. We love that. It's been, a desire for Bridge the Gap. I mean, that's kind of what we do. We bridge the gap.

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14:37 - 14:44

Jack York

You guys are doing. It's the same. It's the same thing we're doing in a different way. So I just drive around a lot more.

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14:44 - 14:53

Lucas McCurdy

Yes, we want to see it on that bus. Well, Jack, appreciate you spending time with us today. Busy schedule here at Leading Age. Are you headed back? Where are you headed from here?

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14:53 - 15:23

Jack York

Next week. We're going from here. I'm. I'm taking my buddy that you guys have interviewed before I  but Francis Cameron, we're taking him on kind of a three week tour. So over the next three weeks, I will be going from Nashville to California to Omaha to Wisconsin to take Francis to a Packers game, to Washington, DC, to Las Vegas to Michigan. To Washington, DC to Atlanta.

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15:23 - 15:25

Josh Crisp

Just getting tired listening to that.

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15:25 - 15:27

Lucas McCurdy

And will you're going to fly.

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15:27 - 15:32

Jack York

A little bit of driving but that's mainly flying. Sometimes reality hit reality kicks.

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15:32 - 15:48

Lucas McCurdy

Well good okay. Well, I'm exhausted just hearing all that. But a fun conversation. Jack York. For our listeners that want to get tapped into this, we will certainly link, the Talegate empire, to the links in the shownotes. And we'll also copy that on BTGvoice.

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15:48 - 15:55

Jack York

I like to publicly say, you guys are like some pretty boy faces, but it's Sara that makes this machine roll.

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15:55 - 15:57

Lucas McCurdy

Everyone knows that. Jack.

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15:57 - 16:02

Jack York

Sara, you guys are just, You know, you guys are just eye candy.

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16:02 - 16:18

Lucas McCurdy

We'll tell everyone knows this. Sara, is what makes this all come together super great. Our executive producer. So, I'm sure she'll have some pretty significant edits on this podcast. Thanks. I was just going to challenge the editor.

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16:18 - 16:21

Lucas McCurdy

It's a bit challenging right now. But we appreciate you taking time today, all right?

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16:21 - 16:32

Jack York

You guys are awesome. Keep doing what you're doing. And let's so let's look at of let's hook up there's there's plenty of room in the van okay.

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16:32 - 16:34

Lucas McCurdy

Well, that's a wrap. That's it. Thanks for listening to Bridge the Gap.

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16:34 - 16:35

Jack York

Okay. See you.

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16:35 - 16:45

Lucas McCurdy

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.

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