Self-Care Versus Elder Care Reality

SPEAKER_02 0:05

We talk a lot about taking care of ourselves. You know, those self-care routines, um those those checklists, the aesthetics of that. Yeah. All that looks very kind of, you know, relaxing. But then there's a conversation most families are quietly avoiding. The one about what happens as our parents grow older. The invisible weight that adult children carry. The invisibility that our elders feel. And the gap between the lives our oldest generation deserves and the way the world actually treats them. Well, today's guest is building something that addresses all of it. And I wholeheartedly believe, and I believe you'll agree with me, listeners, this conversation is long, long overdue. Welcome to Healthy Mind, Healthy Life, where we believe that a truly healthy life includes every stage of it, not just the ones the world celebrates most loudly. Hi, I'm Sana, your host, listeners, as always here. I'm so glad you're here with us today because I'm joined by Mary Ampirine, a business development and marketing strategist, board director, impact investor, and founder of Viva Valley, a company determined to change how the world views, supports, and serves our elders. Now, let me tell you, listeners, with degrees from UC Davis, Columbia University, and Harvard Business School, Mariam has built and scaled multiple companies. And now she applies all of that expertise to one of the most personal and urgent missions of our time. And today, for this episode, we are going to explore her confidence aging framework, the expertise of the aging process, and the relief that adult children desperately need when navigating this chapter alongside their parents. So I urge all of you to stick with us. And Mariam, welcome to Healthy Man

Meet Mariam And Viva Valley

SPEAKER_02 2:20

Healthy Life. I'm absolutely honored having you here.

SPEAKER_01 2:22

Sunnah, it's an honor to be here with everybody. What a wonderful introduction. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 2:29

Thank you so much. And this is something very, very, very close to my heart, Mariam, because I am at that stage of life when I am personally navigating that. It looks to me like this, I don't know whether it's a dilemma or it's confusion, it's fear or anxiety. Um, and and you know, there are different aspects attached to this fear. Um, so I I I'm really, really thankful for what you are doing. And uh, you know, uh from from your experiences and you know, I mean, you you describe your decision to create uh Vior Valley as coming from a life knowledge of environment around those aging. First of all, I'm really thankful for the work you are doing, and then also um uh you know, you saw a deep, you experienced a deep disappointment in the invisibility of our elders. So I would love to know, Mariam, um, what was the moment or maybe the accumulation of moments that made this not just a passion but a mission for you?

SPEAKER_01 3:39

Thank

The Moments That Made It A Mission

SPEAKER_01 3:40

you. And Suna, I can't wait to hear what you're going through and hopefully we can talk about that a little bit later. But I've been surrounded, as it turns out, by old people. Um, and as I look back, the last 30 years of my life have been different sets of grandparents and then my parents. And actually, I'm married to a man who's 46 years older than me. Can you believe it? So my husband will be celebrating his 95th birthday in August, and we've been married uh almost 20 years. So I've had a front row seat, not as a child, but as a wife, of what that road of invisibility looks like, toll it can take on somebody, and really how do you support around that to not uh to protect against the deterioration of our elders that's done by society, right? Not just naturally by the aging process. And so that's really where the framework developed. But you asked me where it started. It started with a grandfather that I was supporting um emotionally that was aging in Pennsylvania while I was in Malaysia. So he was in the US, 85 years old, determined to live at home. My grandmother had passed away. And I just really struggled to support him stay in his own home, right? His children, my father, wanted to move him into a facility, again, out of fear, out of protection, want him to be safe. But my grandfather just wanted to live his life his way. And I realized we all make decisions for older people out of our sense of comfort and our reckoning of fear.

SPEAKER_00 5:39

And that's not fair. It's just not fair.

SPEAKER_02 5:46

And um Marieam, I mean, sorry to interrupt, uh, but but but this is exactly um what I have been um observing, experiencing, what I've been thinking about. And and yeah, this is this is such a nuanced, nuanced discussion because and I think there there has been a very kind of a cultural shift that has that has been determining the kind of decisions that we as adult people, whether we are the children or the grandchildren, uh making. Because honestly, I mean, you know, just just looking at at just just saying from my own experiences and my my perspectives, and I believe many of our listeners will connect with that, whether they wouldn't agree or disagree. Um, that is absolutely their own, uh, you know, at their own discretion.

A Grandmother Who Refuses To Move

SPEAKER_02 6:46

But um it's honestly difficult logistically, financially, because the kind of the conundrum that you just mentioned, Maryam, that like my grandmother, she, I mean, we we lost our grandfather, maternal grandfather, 20, 25 years back. And she has been, my grandmother has been living alone. Um, of course, we occasionally visited her, her other, her other children with their families visited her. But she has been doing everything alone. All the the all the work, all the responsibilities. I mean, she has been mentally, physically fit to take care of herself. You know, she has been a very strong woman, but of course now she's 85, 86 years old, and her health has drastically deteriorated. We thought we decided to uh look for options, you know, where she could be kind of in a community of other people of her age, uh, her generation, uh, where she would, you know, find it friendlier or maybe, you know, familiar, but she wouldn't leave her home. She wouldn't. Because, and and in the hindsight, now when I think about it, if I keep myself in her place, I would also think the same because I have spent my whole life, I have spent my married life, my memories are attached, my memories with my husband are attached to that house. How could I leave it? How could I go to some kind of alienated place where I don't know anyone? And uh, yeah, maybe I get all the materialistic care and all the attention and everything. Um, and that's why I believe this is such a nuanced, nuanced conversation, honestly.

SPEAKER_01 8:33

It really is. And let's take the example of your grandmother, because I think it's a great one, and I think it's it's what most people are facing, right? And can I ask you, was the decision to let her be in the house and try to work around it?

SPEAKER_02 8:50

Um, yeah, it was her decision, and we also decided no, it's it's it would be unfair, it would be an injustice to take her to somewhere, somewhere place else without her willing, willingness or her consent. So we know what the fine.

The Confidence Aging Framework Explained

SPEAKER_01 9:05

And I'm gonna jump into the confidence aging framework because this is exactly a good example of probably one of the better ways to explain it. So as we age, people always just look at the physical deterioration that becomes obvious. But actually, all of our parts don't age at the same time. Okay. And even as we are at our oldest, our cells are able to regenerate. We are able to um still grow, if, if you will, right? The parts we're still able to heal. You get cut, even if you're 95, the cut will scab over and it will heal. But what happens that is silent is a loss of confidence. And I've broken down these confidences into nine. Now, if you were to take your grandmother out of her home, and I'm so glad you didn't, her confidence would shatter overnight. Now, let me tell you all the different confidences that are tied to that home. Emotional confidence is one of them that you mentioned. There's memories in the home, there's repetition in the home, but she has environmental confidence. She knows her way around that house, even if there's stairs, even if there are steps, she's been taking them for decades. If you were to take her into a brand new environment, she's already going to have a blow to confidence that will pull down her other confidences and her aging will happen more rapidly. Yes. So while you might think that she might be safe because if something happens, there's somebody nearby, the occurrence of something happening will be more, right? Her social confidence will decline, her physical confidence will decline, and most importantly, her psychological confidence, which you will rob her of, is her ability and her um her belief in her own self-efficacy. She will no longer believe she can take care of herself because none of you believe she can take care of herself. And that's probably the most detrimental uh blows to the confidence. So, what people don't talk about is how much faster often highly independent people age when they move into a facility, right? And again, they are great for a lot of people, the people who choose to go there themselves, right? Exactly. Plan for it and choose. Exactly.

Supporting A Parent While Managing Fear

SPEAKER_01 11:38

And I also have a um, I have a father, he's slightly demented, and he lives in Iran. Okay, that was by himself, and I'm devastated because he has, you know, uh frontal lobe dementia. And every time I see him, it's worse. And I've talked to him about it, and he told me he doesn't want to go in a facility, and he told me outright, I would rather die on my kitchen floor in a month than live three years in a place that I don't want to be.

SPEAKER_02 12:09

Um, Marim, if I hear that correctly, he's in Iran right now, as we are in Iran right now, correct. Oh wow, okay.

SPEAKER_01 12:16

In Iran, which is frightening for me because I have to manage my fear. I cannot control his life in order to reduce my fear. And I have to remember that I am a supporting character in his life. He's the main character, and he should be able to stay the main character in his own life, however uncomfortable that makes me. And it makes me very uncomfortable. The judgment of other people makes me uncomfortable. What will people say that his family's not looking after him? There's a lot of things that make me uncomfortable. Not getting information from him, if he's unwell, his unwillingness to live or depression, all the things that I feel so helpless and out of control over. Right? I don't imagine it's not enough of a reason for me to force him to live in a way that makes him uncomfortable so that I can be comfortable.

SPEAKER_02 13:21

Absolutely.

Why Multigenerational Living Changes Everything

SPEAKER_02 13:22

And if I mean if if you just flip the context, you know, we and and this is coming from many of the discussions, you know, I I listened to um online where, you know, people are um having conversations, especially on the family structures and the kind of society right now we are living in. Just kind of flip the context, you know, and think about your children. Um, so in in many of the families, you know, um, and I'm I'm not kind of pinning the blame on anyone out there. This is just coming from what I have observed and not extrapolating anything, not not exaggerating anything in here. But um, you know, let's say you know maybe, you know, you are not in that position to take care of your kids. Um, you know, you're not able to look after your kids. Uh of course, you know, because there is the way of surviving and making sure that, you know, you have the money, you're working, probably, you know, both parents are working, or maybe a single parent, you're working two jobs, you're not getting time. Um, and and this has been through many generations, you know, sending children to boarding schools or um or may you maybe assigning someone to take care of your children. But I believe uh, you know, it creates a very different kind of thought process in in children, especially in those very tender, uh, very initial years of your children. Of course, you know, when they're growing up, I also believe they should get an idea of what the outside world looks like. But when we're talking about those very tender age, you know, very tender years where your children are growing, you know, they are they are learning from the environment, they're learning from the people around them. Um, we talk about, you know, in the context of, yeah, just send them to a boarding school, they'll be disciplined, they'll be prepared for that competition, that rat race out there. And um, I think many people have come out and talked about the psychological implications of that, you know, especially for very, very young kids who are who are, I mean, how? I mean, just eight or nine years old.

SPEAKER_00 15:36

Sure.

SPEAKER_02 15:39

I mean, you are devoiding, you know, of that home, that environment, that love, and you're just sending them outside in a very different environment.

SPEAKER_01 15:48

Sure. I think it's similar. I I think that the construct of wanting the best for your child or even your parent, I think you have to stop and ask yourself, actually, what is it? Right? So if the answer is that it's uh it's a sense of self and fulfillment, I think that's gonna change generation to generation, right? Country to country. But without question, the people who live multi-generationally the longest have the least amount of problems in this space, both the connection from child to parent and parent to grandparent. So, where 40 years ago, it was very common that you're living with your children with your parents. So, what happens in this? You're not seeing your grandmother once every few months or once every couple of weeks or twice a year, or flying across the country, or between countries to see them once every few years. You're living with them every day. Yeah, they're seeing your children every day, which means their genetic, their cellular disposition is exchanging with youth. Your the small children are getting to experience aging in a very contextual way. And as the middle sandwich generation, you get to see the desires, capabilities day to day. So you don't actually notice the deterioration as fast and it happens less fast. The aging person in the home is participating, everybody has roles. So the burden is a lot less, but the drastic notion and fear of you as the sandwich generation is not the same as all of a sudden visiting grandma or visiting mom when she's 85 and going, uh-oh, she had a fall. She can't live at home alone anymore. Because what you don't see are all the years and all the things she could, you see the one time she couldn't. And that's what sticks, right? So us not living together and having the dual households, like you were saying, dual income households where there's no longer this family bond is really affecting everybody's aging journey from small child to middle-aged, stressed mother who's a daughter, who's a wife, who's employed, to the grandparents who are now living either on their own or aged, waking up every day in pain and alone with no family. It's not working out for any of the generations, actually. It's it's genuinely not.

SPEAKER_02 18:44

And Marima, I also want to get an understanding, and and we definitely cover the confidence aging framework, um, although we have a very short period of time, but I want to bring in this um perspective as well.

Boundaries And The Burden On Youth

SPEAKER_02 18:58

Um so now the kind of you know, um, the kind of shift that we are seeing, um, you know, that the young uh people moving out of their family, familiar um houses and you know, going to the cities. And and you know, the the kind of dynamics that we are seeing in terms of the economics and the financial structure, and this may differ country to country, but I'm just you know kind of speaking from my own uh perspective, that you are migrating to some other city and you know you are knee deep, you are working um to make sure that you know um um your uh you don't you you are planning your finances accordingly. Uh because you know, maybe in that particular city where your family has been there, your grandparents, your parents are there, maybe that particular city cannot provide that kind of opportunity. Uh maybe it's it's um the higher education or the job scenario, it's it's not it's not uh uh you know uh uh favorable. So you are migrating to some other city um and you decide to kind of you know, and then there can be several reasons contributing to that. Um sometimes it can be also generational differences, you know. Uh maybe, you know, it there's a very different kind of environment where you are not able to survive. Um, because you know, there are so many dynamics performing here in that family structure. Um, so there can be several reasons where um people in my generation or in the younger generations, they're not able to survive in that kind of structure. Um, but they do want to have still have that kind of relationship or connection with their family, with their grandparents, um, with their relatives as well. But they also want to keep a very respectable boundary or a distance where they're uh they are uh quote unquote, you know, not that kind of free, but free to lead a life which is not just in that rigidity of that structure, because you know, there is a generational difference also coming here into play. And sometimes I believe these kind of generational differences they create sometimes unfavorable circumstances as well, you know, leading to arguments, difference of opinions, um, difference in the way you make your life decisions and your grandparents or parents have made the life decisions. So, what do you have to say, Mariam, on that?

SPEAKER_01 21:39

So, I mean, look, I I'm Asian at the end of the day, so I fully understand the dynamics of first, second, and third generations and the expectations. But I think the moment that you end up having to seek opportunity out. A distance and the world is changing, and the generation that's holding on that's older is not elastic enough to appreciate having to change with that for the sake of keeping the family unit together, then they're not doing their part, right? So it's very easy to always say, okay, you younger generation, you need to stay in line. But the world is changing and the world is always going to change. And if the priority is keeping the family unit together, then you really have to sit and adjust. I'm 49, my I have twins, they're 14. I know without question that I need to make sure that I am aware of the world that they're growing up in and their peers are experiencing. And if I expect them to, for example, to go to a great university in the US or the UK, I have to be extremely mindful of what that means. That means they're going to spend four years with other people with other ideas and other ambitions and other goals, and those goals will become their goals. I have to recognize that and say, what am I, if I still want to have my family unit, what adjustments am I willing to make as a mother if I want this, you know, um opportunity for my child? Or I don't give it to them because you can't have it both ways. He said you can't have it both ways. And I feel like always the burden is on the younger people to tow the line and you know, agree with their elders. And I'm an extreme traditionalist, I'm gonna be honest with you. So that's run companies, but also marry to a much older man, and I'm extremely domestic. But in this regard, you cannot pause how rapidly the world is changing. And we have not seen a change like we've seen in the last 25 years.

SPEAKER_02 24:09

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 24:10

Yeah, but it is but this aging situation, that it's going to come for all of us. And I do want to highlight something before we lose time, especially since all of us are in the workforce, all of us are building things and and making things.

Tech That Excludes Seniors Hurts Everyone

SPEAKER_01 24:27

If we are excluding the older members of the population from what we build, it will become an increasing burden on us. And let me explain. Every time we build an app like an Uber or a blinket or a, you know, any any of these logistic apps and that are so disruptive and so amazing. Okay, we don't consider the 30% of the population that cannot use them because we're not designing UX for them and we're not designing an experience for them. And we exclude them. And it's so disruptive. I'll take Uber as an example, the the ride hailing company, right? Yeah. 15 years ago, 20 years ago, you want to hire a car, you call a taxi cab company, yeah, a local taxi cab company, or you hail them and you go downstairs, you give them your number, you get in a cab and you go. Expensive? Yes, easy and traditional to do, also yes. Yeah. Now Uber enters the picture, rides are cheap, highly available, highly efficient, but it makes the taxicab companies more expensive or go out of business. So now if you're 85 and all of a sudden you lose your driver's license and you're living alone, how do you get somewhere? What if you don't have an app? What if you can't figure out the app or the OTP to backlog on your app when you get logged out of your app? Now who are you gonna call for a ride to go to the dentist or the grocery store? All of a sudden, you can't just open the yellow pages anymore because the taxicab company you think you're calling now has an automated system. Yeah. And now you have to speak into the tone to say your address. And some it's we've blocked them out of an entire part of the economy. So now they have to call their daughter and say, book me a ride.

SPEAKER_02 26:43

I I I face and I'm not going to say face, I navigate through these situations every single day, Mariam. And and and and I don't find it frustrating, honestly. I do find it frustrating from the POV that um how even you know explaining that this what exactly is an icon, what exactly that particular button says, um is so hard to explain them. And initially I used to think, why aren't they uh understanding that? But then I realized this generation didn't even uh they did everything analog. We got introduced to computers when we were kids. Um in India, I think back it was um 19 uh 90s when we got introduced to computers. I think the Western um market got introduced way earlier, but um this generation hasn't been accustomed to this kind of you know using of any device. So for them, those buttons, those icons, how exactly it's it's all like very confusing. So at that time, I think then the onus comes to me in how efficiently I can explain that. I literally had to teach, you know, my mother, like I'm teaching a kindergarten kid, A, B, C, D. Honestly, Miriam.

SPEAKER_01 28:22

And I I I feel you. I mean, my I'm lucky, my 95-year-old husband right now, he's in the other room. He's listening to YouTube Shorts because I teach him. And I love that he stays active. But I have to tell you, I was on a UN panel for um digital literacy in the population, and I want to say this is gonna happen to us too. It does not matter how tech savvy you think you are, in another 30 years, the way we do things is gonna be foreign to us, and we are gonna feel exactly like our parents. So if we don't have companies that are willing to bridge that gap, right, then we are, or companies that are willing to design and incorporate that last 30%. And they're the ones with the money, Cindy, these baby boomers, okay, this next generation that is aging, they're the ones with all the money on the planet. If you exclude them from economies, we're in big trouble. We have got to build to include Viva Valley, uh, the company that I founded is that

Teaching Tech And Rebuilding Confidence

SPEAKER_01 29:37

bridge. One of the most popular services we offer are in-home tech services for seniors, where we go in and we have professionals that teach you how to use the technology. Repetitive, weekly meetings. There is nothing more inspiring than sitting with a 90-year-old man and pulling up Spotify and asking him to pick a song from his high school days and watching his face light up when he has the entire catalog at his finger. I'm I know, I know, Maria. I know. So there's some real beauty to this as well. And when we go back to talking about the confidence, back to the Uber example. You may not mind booking an Uber.

SPEAKER_00 30:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:26

Could you imagine what it feels like for somebody who knew how to do something? And they still do, but the world has changed, so they're not allowed to do that like that anymore. So now they lose the confidence and think, how am I to do this? And they didn't do anything wrong, and they didn't get dumber and they didn't get less capable, the world changed. And what we pulled out from under them was the simple things that they used to do to take care of themselves. Even something like finding a plumber, you now need the internet. You can't call information, you can't open the yellow pages or the white page, those things don't exist. You just can't do it. You can't even call to order food, they will send you to an app.

SPEAKER_02 31:21

Absolutely. And and Marin, that's why I just want to share two things here. Number one, that's why, and and you know, this um, if you if you, I mean, um and maybe you know, any any listener is listening from India, you know, they'll they'll kind of find it familiar. Maybe they have their families in India. Um, that in the tier two or tier three cities, I mean, not the the metro or the the metropolitan cities of India, but in the tier two and tier three cities, um families have their set, you know. Um, they have beautiful relationships with electricians, plumbers. Yes. Um, you know, and and uh these are the plumbers or electricians whose generations have been serving these families. So they have, and these kind of relations cannot be, I don't believe it can be replicated by the the modern the tech, you know, um companies who would probably, you know, um yeah, for the convenience they'll be able to provide these services. But the kind of relationships these families and these, you know, um service um these people have, uh the technicians or the electricians or plumbers have, it's it's completely, I know I I really I kind of you know find it very, very um surprising that um the current crop of you know generation who are living in the urban, advanced, you know, super technologically advanced cities, everything made, um, service providers, everything booked through tech and through apps, we are not able to enjoy that kind of relationships, those kind of connections and that kind of trust uh in in those um you know um transactions or you know, discussions, conversations happening.

SPEAKER_01 33:16

Absolutely. And it does come down to trust, and that is a community. So at Viva Valet, when you have a concierge, the whole idea is that we vet service providers and are surrounded by a trusted group of providers, whether it's your plumber or it's your electrician or it's your meal delivery person or your service tech. These are people we work with from within your community that have a lot, we don't use apps, have a long-standing relationship with the idea that we're building them. They know you by name. They've been community for 10 or 15 years, right? So we're trying to build that for the elder people that want to continue to live at home. So there's a feedback loop as well. If the electrician notices there's something wrong, they can check in. They can check in with your concierge and say, hey, something was a bit off today, right? We're all looking after you as a community, and that's really how it needs to be. India has some great companies too. Uh, there's a company we work with um at Viva Valley called Second Medic, and they're building out elder care as well. Uh and they have a these the physical presence as well with these satellite pharmacies in these different tier two, tier three cities as well. Yeah. So it's kind of a fidgetal model. So they can actually, you can go into the um the locations. So there has to be it has to be relationship-based and it has to be based on trust because that is what that generation deserves. It's what they're used to. And I fundamentally believe that each generation that has lived 70 years deserves to live the next 30 in comfort, not in fear.

SPEAKER_02 35:05

Very well said, and absolutely wholeheartedly agree with you, Miriam. And and uh first of all, apologies for butchering that pronunciation in the beginning, Miriam. Yes. And I'm really happy and really, really appreciate what um you are doing through Viva

Scams And Safety In A Digital World

SPEAKER_02 35:20

Valley. And secondly, I also believe um, I think, and and it also calls for um the systems and not only the government, but um, I think as a social responsibility because um our elders uh are at a huge risk of you know um suffering through um the kind of scams or the digital, you know, in India we see a lot of cases right now happening around digitally arranged. Yeah, it's worldwide. It's worldwide. We have seen multiple, multiple. I mean, I and I think it it's it has been now, it has been there now for more than a decade now. And the elders, they have been, they are still right now at the highest risk, highest vulnerability of um losing, entirely losing their life savings, suffering not only financially, but emotionally, mentally. And it's horrifying. It's horrifying when I'm I really look at some of the cases I read or I watch documentaries, and it's really appalling. And that's why um I kind of feel that you know, even if uh sometimes it can be mentally exhausting, it's my responsibility to uh educate my parents or if possible my grandparents um in any capacity that I could, or maybe or maybe, you know, I I I would suggest, you know, just stay away from the the kind of digital revolution we are seeing. I would still suggest them to go back, you know, to the simplicity of the part. I mean, yeah, it's okay. You are getting your um sometimes, you know, that 10 minutes or 30 minutes is fine uh when there is an emergency, but um convenience should not come at the cost of someone's safety, whether it's physical or emotional or mental safety.

SPEAKER_01 37:19

I couldn't agree with you more. And I'll leave you

The Truth About Becoming Old

SPEAKER_01 37:22

with one thing. I I lived with my Iranian grandma for several years, uh off. And when she was in her, I would say maybe around 92, my my father uh making fun of her for something. I can't remember what it was. You know, she couldn't eat very well. We were sitting at the breakfast table, and you know, he laughed at her for something, and she said, Go ahead and laugh, laugh all you want, but remember this I will not become you, you will become me. And I had never forgotten that at 92. This woman's so savage, and it's true, you know, we care about our older, our older folks, and when we see them, but we cannot escape that destiny. So if we don't fix this, it's coming for us, and we have zero visibility, you have no idea what it's like to be old until you arrive. How can I ask how old you are, Tina? Oh, I'm in my late 30s now. Okay, so do you remember when you were eight years old and you looked up at somebody that was 30, what you thought that would be like or feel like? It's how you feel that now exactly. I I I miss you. What you think even 90 feels like does not. My husband still feels like he's 65 inside the same way you feel like you're 16. It doesn't actually change, it just looks different on the outside, and there's a lot more joint pain. The body starts aching, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:09

And and and honestly, Mario, I think uh now we are seeing um, and it's it's not about the the conventional aging, but in in fact, in you know, young people in their maybe early 30s or late 20s, um uh many of them are experiencing, you know, these kind of symptoms. Um, probably because of the lifestyle, probably because of the increased usage of uh the digitization or the digital revolution or everything. Uh but you know, once again, I think um we should be mindful when it comes to convenience. It shouldn't be I agree.

SPEAKER_01 39:48

The time that it takes to do things is not a waste of time, but it's actually valuable. Even if what that is is waiting. Even as simple as waiting. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:07

It's beautiful, so Maryam. Oh,

Where To Find Viva Valley

SPEAKER_02 40:10

wow. Oh so I I wish we could have gone on and on, but Mariam, uh, if our listeners they would like to um be a part of uh what you are doing, they would love to explore more uh, you know, about uh Viva Valley, connect with your work, take the first step toward more confidence-supported aging, how they can uh reach out to you.

SPEAKER_01 40:34

They can find us at viva valley.com and there's a link there to my Substack. So if they want to learn more about how to support their parents, how to change their mindset when it comes to um approaching the conversations or the aging journey with their parents, and I always suggest people have conversations much, much earlier than is required. Yeah, they they can find us there.

SPEAKER_02 41:01

Amazing. Listeners, you heard it from Mariam, and uh I'll put all the links in the show notes. So I invite all of you, whether it's for family or you an adult child or even an elder listening to this conversation right now. I urge all of you, I invite all of you to check out Fever Val and what Mariam is doing and explore more around confidence supported aging. And uh Mariam, thank you. Thank you so much. I think uh not just about the awareness, but this has been a kind of a very cathartic uh experience for me because uh I personally am I'm navigating through this every day, every moment. Um, and having conversations, I think it's the very first step, and having that awareness and acceptance, acknowledgement, I think it's a very first step. So thank you so much. And uh thank you everyone to all the listeners who showed up for this conversation. Whether you are navigating this yourself, supporting someone you love, or just beginning to think about what this chapter might one day look like. Here's what I want to leave you with. Your parents' most deserved years are not behind them. And your role in that, whatever shape it takes, it matters more than you know. So this is Healthy Man Healthy Life. And if this episode stirred something real for you, do share it with your family, your friends, your loved ones. Have the conversation. It's not too early. New episodes are waiting for you wherever you listen to podcasts, and I'm Sana. I'll be back soon with another episode. Thank you so much.