Aging in Place with Lisa M. Cini

george grombacher 0:02
This is Seanie is the foremost authority on the design of senior living environments. She is the founder of Mosaic design studio. She’s a speaker, author and entrepreneur, her newest book is boom, the baby boomers guide to preserving your freedom and thriving as you age in place. Welcome, Lisa.

Lisa M. Cini 0:18
Thank you, I’m so happy to be here.

george grombacher 0:21
excited to have you on, tell us a little about your personal lives more about your work and why you do what you do.

Lisa M. Cini 0:28
Personal life, I’m married for forever, I think I’ve been with my husband, 43 years, we don’t count anymore, and have two children, and have been doing Aging in Place design for almost 30 years. So I have had my own company 25 years this year. And what we specialize in is finding tech and tools and tips to help people age with their own freedom.

george grombacher 0:57
How did you get into that?

Lisa M. Cini 0:59
I, you know, I would have thought that it just happened to me. But as I like start to like roll back and you start to look at your historical, we have longevity in our family. So one point my kids had six great grandparents alive. So I think because of that I was used to seeing, excuse me, people thrive into their hundreds. And so it really changed my mindset as an interior designer of what Aging in Place design Senior Living design could be.

george grombacher 1:32
I appreciate that. So it seems obvious, but what is what is aging in place.

Lisa M. Cini 1:38
So you know, there’s a bunch of different definitions out there and senior living facilities, which is the F word. I in my industry, I think they’re great, I think they’re, they’re great option for a lot of people. And that’s where my design for makes our living. However, I think you should be able to age where you want, when you want. And we shouldn’t be saying, Okay, once you decide to not live in your own home, or your own apartment or senior living, you’re then stuck there. And aging in place for me is choosing to live where you want when you want. And a lot of that has to do with now we can carry our medical records with us. You couldn’t do that before. And so you were kind of stuck to where your doctor was. And now you can spend half your time in Phoenix, you can spend it in Florida, you can spend it on a cruise ship, or at your own home or in senior living.

george grombacher 2:31
Just all about being in the position to make those decisions.

Lisa M. Cini 2:35
Yeah, and I think you know, that’s part of the reason why I do what I do is that I’m helping people to have some more wisdom to make the right decisions. It’s not about me telling somebody how to do it. It’s about us talking about my daughter and I have a podcast together. What’s your next move aging on your own terms. And she’s 25. And she’s lived through this having four generations in one home at one point. And it’s about having choices. And you can’t do that if you don’t know what what’s out there.

george grombacher 3:08
For generations in one home, is that good?

Lisa M. Cini 3:11
You know what, I wouldn’t have traded it for anything. My grandma has now passed, but she was 92 with Alzheimer’s. So it was a little tough with Alzheimer’s. But I also would have never in my kids say they would never trade it. I would have never have actually met my grandmother. And when I say net, I knew my grandmother, she was 96 when she died we spent summers with her in West Virginia. But I really met my grandmother living with her I heard stories that I’d never heard before. I had no idea she was anything other than a wife and a grandma, and made like awesome cornbread and pies. And what I found out is she was the lead in her high school musical she had played the violin, she was on the girls basketball team. So like I actually met her and I was a little bit sad that I hadn’t met her a lot earlier. So

george grombacher 4:05
you spend well, I guess I don’t need to guess at it. You professionally help. I almost use the F word. You’ve helped facilities or you do help facilities to make the experience the environment as great as as as possible as economically and and as smart as possible. And is boom is more you’ve observed what it takes to create a space now how do I help an individual become better at doing it themselves and making their decisions? 100%

Lisa M. Cini 4:41
and I think you know, part of it is that when we feel empowered, and we have autonomy, and we’re not just sitting on the front porch, but we’re able to give back to society. I think we change our mindset. There’s also constant changes in health care. Understanding pets and the fear around what if I die before my pet dies? Like, how do you deal with that? What do you deal with marijuana and CBD? You know, how do you deal with robotics and all these things? So the book boom really encompasses all that plus some maybe tips on how do you deal with aging parents? How do you deal with multi generational living, what the terms are in senior living, as we say the F word, right? It’s everything from independent living, CCRC, assisted living, memory care, and skilled nursing and short term rehab, and now RLS, which are residential assisted living, that’s a lot of terms and trying to understand it, and it’s different in every state, you kind of need to have a little bit of a textbook that’s easy to, you know, look at and say, What should I do? What is this even called? Is this something I’d be interested in? And to help maneuver you through the decisions that you need to make?

george grombacher 6:03
Yes, certainly. You know, as, as things are new, you mentioned marijuana and CBD, yeah, we’ve known that marijuana has been a thing for a long time. But CBD is is is a new thing. There are lots of ways that marijuana could potentially benefit us as as, as we age, and then all these terms and everything else. And you mentioned wisdom at the top. It’s like there’s information everywhere. But how do I actually use it?

Lisa M. Cini 6:30
Yeah, there is a great cartoon art piece that I love from gaping void. And it has a bunch of random dots. And it says this is information. But knowledge is when you connect those dots, and you can figure out a path.

george grombacher 6:47
Right. And I imagine all transitions, I know all transitions can be stressful. And as we are looking at transitioning into being a senior that is carries with a lot of anxiety, and I don’t want to screw it up. And I’m sure that if I don’t have the information, I probably will just not make any decisions. And then I’ll just be kind of stuck in place versus a gene in place.

Lisa M. Cini 7:17
Yeah, and part of it is that I think, in America, we have this kind of lie told to us that, you know, you get to a certain age and you retire, and then you relax. And retirement means to take out of use. And I don’t think anybody wants to be taken out of us, I think it means more, in my, at least my idea of retirement is to be able to choose what I work on when I work on it. And everybody’s got a little taste of that with the pandemic, you know, they got a little bit more autonomy. But as we age, if we could choose where we want to live, where we want to work, where we want to contribute, instead of just sitting on the front porch or going off to the home on the hill and change that mindset. You know, it used to be, you know, Social Security was two to three years after you retired, you died, it was not meant for 2030 years of leisure. So how do we change that mentality? And with that, how do we change our health and not be in a crisis. So Americans right now wait till the crisis, I’m not going to put a grab bar in my bathroom until I fall? Well, then you’ve just started this cascade of events, that can be horrific. I’m not going to, you know, I’m gonna go to a ranch house instead of the steps. But steps really aren’t as dangerous. It’s mostly like, you know, getting up in the middle of night in the bathroom. So you lose all that flexibility. I’m not going to work out until I have to be in rehab. You know, which is crazy or eat well. So I think there’s a lot of things that we could change the mentality of crisis into preventative, if you knew, and this is my mentor, Dan Sullivan, kind of does an exercise. Like if you knew you had another, let’s say, I’m 85. My parents are 85 and 83. If they knew beyond a shadow of a doubt, they had another 20 years that were healthy for them. Would they change what they’re doing today? You know, would they change how they behaved? Hey, would they change who they interact with? Would they go on that vacation and take that trip? You know, and I think some of the medical stuff is really helped us. I did the largest study ever on marijuana and baby boomers. And back when I did that survey, people were scared that the government was going to get their name. Which is crazy because now everybody’s like, who cares? You know, it’s things have changed and shifted so quickly, that we need to be as flexible and have some resiliency, and then be proactive instead of kind of sit in this like restraining crisis oriented. I’m gonna put myself you know, I don’t know if you ever watched that movie boy in a bubble, John Travolta, but it was years ago, but it’s like, do you go out there in the world and live and take some chances? Or do you restrict yourself and be safe, but almost in a prison?

george grombacher 10:25
These are big questions.

Lisa M. Cini 10:27
Yeah, yeah. And I think you know, what, if anybody has anybody older in their life, they’re having to deal with them on a daily basis.

george grombacher 10:36
In their such important I, I like to use the analogy of I’m going to start training and eating right, once I win the gold medal, like, well, you’re never going to win the gold medal until you’re training and Ed, right, and the, you know, I’m going to install the grab bar, once I fall, it’s the same thing. So I appreciate that so much. And if you knew you were gonna live for 20 more years, how would your behavior your thinking be different? Maybe it wouldn’t be, you know, changing, changing adult behavior is really challenging.

Lisa M. Cini 11:13
It is it typically, you know, people typically will move towards a different behavior when they’re scared. Or when there’s a crisis. It’s really hard to move towards good behavior or different behavior when things are going well. Yeah, I but I think, you know, we all kind of have to wake up and say, you know, sitting in our houses being locked away from people did us no good. We need to be in community, we need to be breathing fresh air, we need to be walking the dog we need to be experiencing and learning.

george grombacher 11:47
How was how was that experience with four generations of I’m just thinking you have younger kids that are seeing grandma, great grandma, grandpa, it’s like No, Grandma, you need to be doing this. So it’s almost like they get the opportunity to view the the challenges and dangers of limited thinking and behavioral change firsthand.

Lisa M. Cini 12:10
100%, so it went both ways. My kids were in high school. Grandma was 92. When we started parents were in their late 70s. And what I saw was that my children challenged them, just with the amount of kids that were around the house and everything. And my mom would always say, I feel like I said, are you upset that there’s so many people around and that she’s like, No, it’s kind of like I’m a vampire. And I’m getting, you know, all this life, this new life, and I love it. And on the other hand, my kids got this long game mentality that you don’t see. Like, if something happened at school, or they got a bad grade, I would be like, You should bump up by you know, and their great grandma would go, You know what, in the scheme of things, if a fight happened, or girlfriend broke up, or whatever, in the scheme of things, here’s what happened in our life, and this isn’t going to be a big deal. And they also got to learn patience. You know, just getting my grandmother in the car out of the car to the beauty salon in the beauty salon saying hi to all the other grandmas back out and doing that twice my son can interact with anyone in the world. So I think it was a benefit for all sides.

george grombacher 13:29
Yeah, like it perfectly, perfectly described. So I appreciate that. So to be proactive about these things, I can definitely see from a from a child’s perspective I have I have parents and in laws who are either in senior living or looking at it or thinking about I’m 44 I think it all kind of runs together. I certainly have a vested interest in helping them to make good decisions. So what would be your advice to me? To them?

Lisa M. Cini 14:04
So a couple things, you know, community is great, and connection. And scheduling a time? It’s I don’t know if you ever, you know, went on a kid when you were little trip with your parents when you were little and you’re like, Are we there that are we there yet? Are we there yet? Okay, and I could say that like 20 more times, it would be nothing compared to what we did to our parents. When you’re in a disconnected environment, like a senior living and they’re connected, but they’re disconnected from their family, right, you’re not living with them. You’re not seeing them every day. Or they’re aging in place at home or somewhere else. Not knowing when can cause a lot of stress. Say Hey, Mom, I’m gonna call you Saturday morning at 8am and then every Saturday at 8am. I’m gonna call you every day at 730 and we’re going to talk for 15 minutes doing those kinds of things. can create a pattern that someone can feel secure and not have that stress. And it creates a bond and you can actually start to know them, you know, instead of the Christmas, the Easter, those types of things. The other thing is using technology, technology should be intuitive, if it’s hard for them to use, it’s not good. You know, I’ve got a brand new car and and it’s gonna take me 12 hours to learn all the things on it like I’m, I’m irritated, and I write on technology. But a bidet toilet seat, that’s one of those things that super cheap, raises them to the proper height, very clean, healthy, and good for the environment. You know, and gives that person autonomy, we have it in our house, my parents have it, you know, I recommend them for everyone, you if they’re in a home, it can be installed in their home, in a facility. You know, it doesn’t have to be that they’re in their apartment, install, instead of maybe a grab bar, toilet paper holder, maybe do one that also holds your cell phone. So hey, Mom, this is for your cell phone. But it also could be used to lean on and get up and out. There’s tons of little things like that, that we can do instead of taking 50 million vitamin supplements, maybe try athletic greens or something that a lot of the athletes use. And they drink one shake, and they’re done. So I think there’s just a ton of things that we can do. CBD if somebody’s having trouble magnesium cream. Little you know, there’s a saying that small hinges swing big doors. And sometimes it’s just a really little tiny thing that can really help. I know my aunt is nine D. And we’re we’re at a baby shower. And here she is, all of a sudden I see her swipe her little iWatch and answer the phone. And I’m like, you’ve got to be kidding me. I didn’t even know she could do that. And for her that it was an easy thing. She knew exactly how to do it, she could put it right up to her ear. So and you have to kind of be willing to try those things out. It’s not going to work for everybody. Just like you know, not all kids can drive stick today in a car. So or dial a rotary phone. Not all tech is going to work for a senior for my dad, the way to get him involved in tech was put an ESPN app on his phone and big 10 football. We’re done. He can do anything now.

george grombacher 17:40
That’s awesome. Good. That’s, that is perfect small hinges swing big doors, small changes, huge results potentially. And a lot of the time it is just taking that initial first step and getting the ESPN app or whatever on the phone and all of a sudden a whole new world opens up to us.

Lisa M. Cini 18:00
It does it does it just amazing. They can connect with other people on Facebook that they went to high school with and actually regain some of their youth back.

george grombacher 18:11
Or enjoy the pain and suffering that the rest of us enjoy through social media. Lisa,

Lisa M. Cini 18:15
I’ll tell you what it was it was interesting. My dad just had like a episode and we ended up in the hospital with him. And we’re all in there and Ohio State football was playing. And the nurse comes in and she’s like, Look, if you don’t settle down, we’re gonna have to turn the gain off. And he’s like, if the buck I start playing better i and and you know, it’s it’s, it’s one of the things Yeah, that we’re we’re connected and we’re moved by it. So hopefully we can be more positively move than negative.

george grombacher 18:45
I love it. Well, Lisa, thank you so much for coming on. Where can people learn more about you? And where can they get their copy of boom, the baby boomers guide to preserving your freedom and thriving as you age in place.

Lisa M. Cini 18:57
Excellent. Well, you can reach out to me on Lisa M dini.com. So that’s Lisa li sa M middle initial C i ni.com. Everything’s on there, even my books and things like that. But you can also do, you know, audible you can do Kindle you can do Amazon and then our podcast is on Spotify and iTunes and YouTube.

george grombacher 19:22
What is the name of the podcast again?

Lisa M. Cini 19:24
What’s your next move aging on your own terms and my daughter is in on that and she is the cutest thing you ever want to see. 25 years old.

george grombacher 19:33
Excellent. Well if you enjoyed as much as I did, she leads to your appreciation and share today’s show with a friend who also appreciates good ideas go to Lisa M seanie.com ls amcini.com and check out all the great resources whether you are the child of an aging parent or you are an aging person, whether your parents or not. Start looking and taking these first steps in connecting some of those dots that we’re all thinking about in the back of our head pick up your copy of boom, the baby boomers guide to preserving your freedom and thriving as you age in place wherever you buy your books, and then check out what’s your next move. That’s correct. Check out what’s your next move podcast wherever you enjoy your podcasts. Thanks again, Lisa. Thank you. Till next time, remember to do your part like doing your best