Ep. 003: Careers in Aging | with Gwen Fitzgerald and Rahim Habib

LISTEN TO THE EPISODE

(access the auto-generated transcript)

—
Episode 3 features two guests to help us highlight careers in aging services for #CareersInAging Month. First, Gwen Fitzgerald, Director of Public Messaging at LeadingAge (national), provides insights into the workforce landscape in aging services and touches on the Opening Doors Initiative. (psst! get excited because we'll explore this more in an episode next month!).

Then, Rahim Habib, Managing Principal at CLA, shares his journey into aging services not as a nurse, a social worker, or the like, but as an accountant (yep, you read that right!), offering advice and even sharing a powerful story of family and connection with care teams.

This episode elevates the conversation with takeaways like:

• Aging services offer varied career paths beyond traditional roles.

• Employee investment and growth opportunities are vital.

• Language can counter ageism.

• Personal experiences, like Rahim's, underscore the importance of human connection between families and care teams.

---
Episode breakdown: 

• 00:00 | Intro

• 01:38 | Context of Careers in Aging

• 06:32 | Power of Language

• 07:19 | Benefits of Working in Aging Services

• 09:08 | Investing in Employees

• 13:40 | Opening Doors Initiative

• 16:42 | Dynamic Professional Growth Opportunities

• 17:57 | Aging Gratefuly 

• 21:44 | From Intern to Managing Principal at CLA

• 26:00 | Find a job you enjoy doing, and you will never have to work a day in your life.'

• 27:04 | Passion. Purpose. Possibilities.

• 30:13 | Uplift Aging: Unfiltered (grab your tissues!)

• 35:01 | Care Teams: Experts. Skilled. Knowledgable.

• 36:38 | Thank you, thank you!

• 37:18 | Outro

---
Special thanks to Gwen Fitzgerald & LeadingAge and Rahim Habib & CLA*.
*Disclaimer: The information herein has been provided by CliftonLarsonAllen LLP for general information purposes only.

This episode is made possible by LeadingAge Texas' Partners: Functional Pathways, LeadingAge Texas Health Plan, Inc., and Ziegler; along with LeadingAge Texas' Diamond Sponsors: Value First and Communities of Faith, RRG.

---
Join the movement as we continue to elevate the conversation on aging by visiting upliftaging.org and following us on our socials @upliftaging.
---
The Uplift Aging Podcast is a production of LeadingAge Texas.

Transcript - Ep. 003 (auto-generated)

Amanda | Intro  

This is Uplift Aging, the podcast that's more than a podcast. This is a challenge to embrace growing older, confront negative stereotypes, and better understand what may come with aging. I'm your host, Amanda Wiedenfeld. Together, let's uplift aging. 

Today's episode is a little longer than our first two, but for good reason. We have two guests. For careers in aging month, we really wanted to highlight some careers that maybe some people might not think about when they think of aging services or senior living. So we invited Rahim Habib, managing principal with CLA, to chat with us about how he found a career in aging services and what it's like. He also shares some great advice and gives us a heartwarming story that may or may not make you tear up. But first, we get to hear from Gwen Fitzgerald, Director of Public Messaging at LeadingAge. Gwen and I will touch a little bit on the opening doors initiative, but get excited because we're gonna do a deep dive into that and some more things in an episode next month. Gwen really helps to give us a good frame of reference and a better understanding about workforce in the aging services field right now. 

We also talk about the power of language, and of course, there's some feel -good stuff going on in there too. But before we dive into these awesome interviews, I want to give you a little context about careers in aging. 

As populations worldwide continue to age and people live longer, the need for professionals in the field of aging is growing rapidly. That's why LeadingAge and LeadingAgeTexas have teamed up with the Gerontological Society of America, AHCA, and Argentum for Careers in Aging Month. This collaboration aims to raise awareness about the diverse career paths available in our field. So, let's dive in. 

Amanda (02:21.806) 

Gwen, if you don't mind telling us a little bit about how you came to LeadingAge and what you do for the association.  

Gwen  

Hey Amanda and listeners, thank you so much for including me today. I am the Director of Public Messaging at LeadingAge and that means that I helped develop the Opening Doors to Aging Services initiative that we'll talk about today. And also think about other ways to talk about the aging services field and the amazing jobs that are in the aging services field to the broader general public. And this might be a lesson in how you get jobs. I was just sitting at my desk one day and I was working for another association and not looking for a job. A friend called or emailed and she was consulting here and they were in the process of thinking about what... became the Opening Doors Initiative, but they knew it would be a big body of work that would need a program manager. And my friend who was consulting here referred me. And at a previous job, we had conducted messaging research on a very different issue. And I saw the power of that. A lot of times in communications, it's super comfortable to talk to the people you already know how to talk to. In the way that you're very comfortable with. But a lot of us want to make change in the world. And that might mean that we need to think about how our words are landing and if there's a better way we can communicate. And I saw the power of that research at my previous organization. And so when I heard LeadingAge was willing to invest in market research to figure out the best way to talk to people so they can hear us better, I said, oh, these folks are smart and this will have some real teeth in this initiative. So I landed at LeadingAge almost three years ago in the middle of the pandemic in April of 2021. And it's been a super rewarding time here.  

Amanda (04:42.478) 

My takeaway, I guess, from that is the importance of language and how we use it and how we speak. Obviously, every point of communication is key, but the power of language and how that impacts how people behave in certain situations or towards certain people or things like aging, if you will.  

Gwen 

It is so important. And again, we just get comfortable in ways that we currently talk. And we can tell the same stories, we can tell the same truths, but maybe with a different starting point in a way to get people to hear us in a way that is more, they're more open to and perhaps less triggered by. And I learned at my other organization, very simple word changes were very, very powerful because people just made assumptions when they heard certain words. We also learned that information is very helpful to people. When we are immersed in something that we do day in and day out, we begin to make assumptions that people know what we're talking about. And both my previous organization and even in this one, people really don't understand what the continuum of aging services are. We offer so many different options and services for people, but they're not really familiar. And certainly, as we begin to intensify our efforts to reach new people to work in our field, they're not aware of all the opportunities. I mean, we've all driven past a life plan community. We've all driven or walked past a senior housing organization, but nobody's thinking that everyone eats there or there's beautiful gardens. Someone must maintain them. They're clean. There's, we know there's activities and people aren't putting two and two together. So now more than ever we need to connect the dots in aging services and what opening doors and the second wave of opening doors, the workforce emphasis does, is give us kind of an insider secrets and a roadmap to telling our story so that it is the most appealing to our listeners. 

Amanda (06:54.222) 

For anyone who is maybe unfamiliar with or has never considered working in aging services, what would you say to them if they asked, okay, well, what would I gain from working in this environment if I'm not a nurse or what can I give if I were to take a role in a marketing department or something like, “I have no background in this. What can I provide? And then how will I benefit from this?” 

Gwen 

Well, first of all, no matter what you do, no matter what you're already trained for and you're already doing, you can do it in the aging services field. And more than likely at almost every aging services organization, there is a role for you no matter what your desire is and what your skill level is and your future aspirations are. What I would say people would get back is an opportunity to build amazing relationships with people are at the forefront of every one of our organizations. And what I hear people who work at LeadingAge member organizations say is just the relationships that the employees make with the residents, the appreciation from the residents and the clients that the employees get back is just tremendous. 

There's so, everyone is saying it, there's so much going on in this world and I think we all know what we mean by that. I thought all of it is positive right now. But what I've been uplifted by everywhere I go is what the leading a general meeting at our leadership summit, when you hear professionals in the employment world talk, what especially I'll just say younger employees newer in their careers, what...Gen X and the millennials are looking for is meaning and purpose. And that is the only thing that we offer. So for people out there who are looking to make a difference, to build relationships, to walk away at the end of the day knowing that what you did mattered, this is where you should be. This is it. This is the perfect place.   

Amanda (09:08.206) 

This is the perfect place to land, to build your career, to grow and develop.  

Gwen 

There's a real intensification within aging services organization right now to invest in employees to build career. We call them ladders and lattices. You can go up, you can go over. We need people to come into our field. And so there is an enormous focus on how we can make an appealing and purpose–driven role in an organization, even more appealing and long lasting, whether it's from employee benefits that organizations are thinking about expanding, whether it's the growth on opportunities that employees will receive through the training and the professional development. It's really a very dynamic and growth oriented sector within our economy. So I would really urge people who are looking for both a starting point and maybe an ending point to have a long and rewarding career to look at any aging services organization in your area.  

Amanda 

I think back to freshly graduating from college, knowing that I wanted to work for a nonprofit in some capacity and knowing that I wanted to not just have a quote unquote job with working for an association of members who are nonprofits who are serving the aging community and their families and their loved ones and are these amazing places to work for. It's just that it is, it's such a sense of purpose and meaning and I am really forever grateful for it because first real job out of college, you know, to find that. So I feel like I'm definitely one of the lucky ones. And I will say too, to add on about workforce, the position, the role that I feel right now for LeadingAge Texas is professional development and...you know, in my early 20s coming out of college, professional development and self -development was something that I just thought was inherent in having a job, getting a raise or a promotion. That, I guess, is what I assumed it was. But now on the other side of things, understanding that it's not quite that. It is truly investing in the people who work for your organization to become better, more whole individuals then therefore will help your organization and the people you serve. Just knowing that we collectively, LeadingAge, have these programs that foster that within member organizations and provide opportunities for people to grow like that is so awesome. I don't know, it's just awesome.  

Gwen 

It is amazing. I was thinking back to the beginning of my career and you know the...when you were hired, they said, oh yes, we have professional development. And they'd say, we'll give you a thousand bucks to go take a course at a community college or something, which is lovely. And a couple of times I did it, but it's a whole other type of opportunity to work in an organization where the culture is to, the culture of the organization is to invest in our employees and make them successful because everybody understands that, you know, a rising tide lifts all boats. So if we translate that to people, right, if we have a positive culture where we invest in people and give them opportunity, that has been shown to be a significant factor in employee retention. So it's all what I call an upward spiral, just things get better and better when you invest in people. And so you don't have to go somewhere to get your professional development. It can happen because your boss sees a little spark in you, somebody mentors you, just gives you tips or guidance or, you know, 20 minutes a week of feedback. And there's a wave of that happening within our organizations. And so it just makes this an even more appealing career field for people who are looking, who love building relationships and love working with people and getting that positive energy. 

Amanda (13:15.406) 

So specifically with Opening Doors, can you tell me a little bit about how the campaign came to be and the ultimate goal behind the work? 

Gwen 

So the short story of Opening Doors was that LeadingAge board members are very strategic. So when the board came together at the end of 2020, they said, we really need to examine how people are perceiving our field. And to be honest, they particularly wanted to know if there had been an erosion of trust in our sector. And they said, we want to address it if we have had an erosion of trust, which I would have bet my life savings at that point that we had seen a lot of trust erode in 2020. And the reason I could It would make sense, right? It would make total sense. From what we were hearing and seeing every day. But this is why we do research, because that assumption wasn't quite right. 

And the good news is that trust in our sector is not a crisis, and it's not particularly our problem. Using language that we tested and ideas that we tested, which is what opening doors is, we took what we learned in the research and developed very easy to understand and follow strategies and we spoke about the power of words, language that we know resonates more favorably and made this information available to our members. And this body of work is publicly available because the board said, we can do this, but we need as many voices singing in the same way as possible.  

Amanda 

It's really helpful. And honestly, we spoke about it before, but language and the words used, it's just such a subtle change, it seems, but when we think about ageism, which we went into a little bit the first two episodes of this podcast, when we think about ageism, when we think about just the word aging and age, just subtle shifts that we can make in our everyday life can make such an impact. And I know that that's truly LeadingAge’s vision: an America freed from ageism, which we always go back to, but it's just so beautiful to see work like this, like opening doors actually giving us the tools to make this happen.  

Gwen 

And we all should be so proud. I mean, there are simple things that we can all start doing. Or that I don't really think is very, is respectful enough, is worker. We use that word to refer to people who work in our organizations, but they are professionals. Whether you are cutting the lawn or you are a CNA or you are a director of nursing, you have skills that you are contributing to these vital organizations, and we want to reflect that. And in fact, our messaging research found that in particular, talking about what they call direct care workers, right, we all say direct care workers, the words that in our research, we found the public beliefs most describes the direct care workers are compassionate, dedicated, essential, and professional. So we're really pushing people to say direct care professionals. And so starting to use opening doors can be that simple.  

Hats are quadruply off to all of the professionals in this field and what they do every single day. And I will continue to encourage people to come to this field. It's meaningful. You have never been needed more. I will also tell people who are hearing this and who might be thinking, is this field for me? Our organizations are such that you can come in and start in the laundry room and you can work your way into direct care, whether that be on the more medical side of things or activities or culinary. And I've heard people say this at our leadership summit that the aging services field is one of the most dynamic professional growth opportunities in the nation right now. And that will not change in our lifetime because of demographics. It's just math. So if people are looking for meaning, purpose, relationships, how to feel good at the end of the day. I encourage you to take a look at any aging services organization in your neighborhood or in your state. 

Amanda (17:40.238) 

All right. So Gwen, last question for you today. What does aging mean to you?  

Gwen 

Grateful. Grateful.  

So when I was, I can remember when I was in college, if someone was in their 30s, I thought they were literally sitting on the front porch in a rocking chair. I mean, 30 was unthinkable when I was 18 and was away from home for the first time. And then the images, especially that women get in our society about how we should look and what is the preferred way to look. I can remember being on a little vacation with some friends of mine, men and women. And I was probably in my late 20s. And the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition came out. And I was despondent. I was so upset about how I looked because of that silly magazine. And this beautiful, kind, male friend of mine explained to me that if it were the job of 27 people to make me look like the cover model, I could be on the cover too. 

Amanda 

What a great friend. Love him.  

Gwen 

What a great friend Jeff Drake is. He was a good friend. So there was a little progression and then changes happen in your life and friends die. You're the same age, your friends die. And I think now to be alive and working and healthy and you know what? This podcast doesn't have video, but I do color my hair because I like brown hair, but I've got some big roots and I need to lose a few pounds that have been hanging around. I don't know if that's age -related or not. I'll take it all. I am grateful to be alive. I am grateful to have a job I love that's in a field that is important. In an intergenerational team, our communications team is about nine people and we span multi -generations. It's fascinating and you learn every day. I'm just, I'm grateful and I'm excited. I'm hopeful and appreciative. And I think it's a good way to be at this age and all the other ages in our lives. That's what I'll say. 

--- 

Amanda (20:41.87) 

Now we have Rahim Habib with CLA or Clifton Larson Allen. And since we're diving into hashtag careers in aging, the social media campaign for this month, we really wanted to showcase the diversity of careers within aging services. Maybe something that a college student might not be thinking about unless they are a nursing student or a social worker. So just wanted to bring Rahim in to tell us a little bit about his story and how he started in the senior living field.  

Rahim 

Thanks, Amanda. And glad to be here today with you and the rest of the community. So for those who want to know a little bit more about, you know, CLA, I'll start there and we'll kind of work backwards to how CLA found me or maybe how I found CLA. So CLA is a professional service firm. So, you know, what do we do? We do your typical audit tax, wealth advisory, digital outsourcing, consulting work. But what makes CLA very unique is that we are industry focused. And what I mean by that is when I started with CLA over 10 years ago, I was an intern A on a whiteboard with a schedule. And luckily the schedule that got assigned to me was all the healthcare and life science jobs which was predominantly senior living at the time. And so when I started my career, all I worked on was senior living. And it was fascinating. It was, I remember my first job was with Methodist Retirement Communities. I was an intern. I remember going down to the Woodlands to the corporate office. And that was the first client I ever saw. And it's a client I still get to work with closely today. And it's fascinating to see,  

You know, at that time I had no idea what I was doing. I was an intern that was still in school, just trying to make my way through accounting at the time. But as I continued to advance throughout my career, um, I got to learn more about the industry. And I got to learn more about our client base and more about the LeadingAge members, um, because of that. And what that turned into was a deep appreciation for the work that the clients and the members of LeadingAge Texas and LeadingAge across the country are doing for the residents.  

So my personal story would have been, I graduated from high school. I thought I was going to study engineering. Uh, that didn't go so well. Then I called my parents say, I'm going to go pre -med. I was like, no, that doesn't work. Because I don't want to stay in school for that long. I don't know if I'm actually smart enough to do that. And so I pivoted to a couple of different careers or majors and finally I landed in accounting. And I was like, okay, I have an accounting degree. I know math. I know that the left should always balance the right. Okay, basic accounting. If you know that, you're gonna pass. But what it really turned out to be is like, I wanted something more out of it. And so when I found the healthcare industry, within CLA, I really found a passion. I found a passion for the clients that we were serving. And it was a different way for me to give back to the residents through my personal experience and expertise, which was accounting and using those skills to benefit the residents.  

And oftentimes people will say, well, Rahim , the accounting that you're doing or the financial statements you're providing are for the organization. How does that impact the residents today? And what I'll tell you is, you know, it's two things. One, the organizations that we serve in the financial statements or the tax returns or the consulting that we're doing, at the end of the day, we're trying to help the organizations and we're trying to alleviate some work on their part so that they can spend their time doing what they need to be doing, which is serving residents. That's what the organizations have been built for and that's what they're really good at. But the second thing I can tell you is that because we've worked with so many organizations across the country and so many providers, we've really got to understand as a firm how organizations work. And our goal at CLA is, as we get to know you and help you, is really working with organizations to get to know their operations, get to know their financial results. And when things seem a little bit out of norm, it's to have those conversations to say, hey, something's not happening right financially. 

And financially sometimes resonates to operations and operations resonates to residents. And so that's the connection that I always kind of continue to make to say every single day when I get up, I'm helping a resident. It might not be by going by their bedside and helping them get up. It may not be by, you know, providing them a prescription or helping them take, you know, with their rehab, but it's to another means. And that gives me a little bit of pride in the work that I do every day. I love that outlook and that you are intentional about, it seems like you're intentional about reminding yourself of that daily. 

Amanda (25:58.734) 

Thinking about careers in aging, do you have any advice for someone who is maybe in your shoes like 10 or 12 years ago?  

Rahim 

Yeah, I would say, you know, you want to find something you're passionate about. All of us have probably heard this quote before. My father used to tell me this very early on in my career in my life. He was always used to say, listen, if you find something you love, you're never going to work a day in your life. And that's what I feel like every single day. I found something I genuinely love. I love the work that I get to do and it doesn't feel like a job. And that's probably why. 

 I'm always running around, I'm visiting different clients, I'm trying to always keep myself busy because it's a passion for me. And it provides me a job and security and it provides me a lot of opportunities in my career, but I'm using those opportunities to also give back into the communities that we work in and we serve in each and every day. So 10 to 12 years ago, what I would tell a younger version of myself or somebody who's looking at something like accounting, or another background and say, listen, everything has to have some type of industry focus in it. That's just the way that our world is built. And so for you, you take your passion and your strong suit, and then you figure out how you want to enter the industry that you're in.  

So let's take music, for example. Music is, you know, a person can be interested in music. They have a passion for playing instruments and making musical songs. But what do you do with it? Well, you look at organizations and our clients, many of our clients have music therapy. They have people that are coming on site to say, let us play your music. So that's one way where you have a great, you know, skill set, which is music, your musician, and how can you give it back to a community, you know, to the aging community or the, the end of our residents is by going ahead and playing that musical therapy. And you might need some additional training to become that that therapist in that sense, but you have the biggest background is what you are, which is what a musician. Um, so that's just one example where you can find, take your passion of what makes you individual and individualize it, but then take it to the clients or the residents that you're trying to serve every day. If you have a passion for it, I'm, I'm a hundred percent sure or 99 .9 % sure that you have a place within a senior living community somewhere, somehow. You can kind of take your passion and then kind of pair it up with giving back to residents in the community at large. 

Amanda (28:39.63) 

It's interesting, we didn't talk about this when we were chatting before I hit record, but the Careers in Aging Month logo says, passion, purpose, possibilities. And we have hit on all of those things in our conversation.  

I so love the advice that you brought up and we've all heard it, but what your dad told you when you were younger and that's such a good outlook. And I feel like that just really leads to a nice balance in life to have that. So I love that you have found that. I love that so many people that I get to work with through LeadingAge Texas have found that and thank you for encouraging others who maybe are going to be our colleagues one day. 

Rahim 

Yep, exactly. And always here to kind of be a resource for those that have questions. So if you need to reach out, but then, you know, if you want to experience this, this community that's been built already, just you know, raise your hand and reach out to a community close by. There's a LeadingAge member or a LeadingAge member community somewhere near you, I'm sure today. And I'm sure if you raise your hand and said, can I take a tour or can I just volunteer my time? Because I have some extra time on the weekends. I guarantee you they're going to take you up on it and you can start to figure out how you can take your skills, knowledge and expertise that we everyone has and give it back to that community or a community. 

Amanda 

Absolutely, our members are always up for people coming in and visiting and experiencing life with them and their residents. And I hope more people actually do start doing that. 

Last question for you, Rahim. It's a little segment called Uplift Aging Unfiltered. We just ask if you can share a powerful moment or an experience that maybe shifted your perspective on aging.  

Rahim 

I didn't know we were going to get emotional today, Amanda. I didn't expect that. So I'll try to say this story quick. Now, I'll try to say it quickly for two reasons. One, I don't know how much time we have left, but two, if I say it slow, I'll probably tear up and cry like I always do. 

Six years ago, my father had a heart attack. And it was a random Friday. I was in the office working, got three phone calls from my mom. Obviously, I'm a kid, so I don't pick up my mom's phone calls. Even younger, old, you just don't ever pick up your mom's phone calls, right? And so then she calls my office. And I was like, okay, hold on, something's going on. And she called and said, your dad's having a heart attack. You need to get to the hospital. So I rushed and ran to the hospital and got there as fast as I could. And next thing you know, they're taking my dad up to surgery because he was experiencing a heart attack and some events happened in surgery that were not great. And he ended up having to be in the ICU for about three weeks. And you know, it was emotional for our family. I had just got engaged a month before. There was a lot of things happening in our, you know, as personal friends and family, and it was just an interesting experience. 

And that was the beginning of his journey because soon thereafter, once he got off of ICU, out of ICU, we got home about a month and a half later, we quickly realized that his heart was not working as well as it should have been. I found out randomly on a day to work one day that they were putting you on the heart transplant list. And I was like, you know, the doctor was going to tell us later that afternoon, but the transplant team had already kind of, you know, ruined the surprise and called me about it. And I called my mom and I was like, why is he going to the heart transplant list? And she goes, Oh no, maybe that's why the cardiologist called us for an appointment today at two.  

So, you know, we went through this entire process as a family and, you know, luckily I sit here today and things have really worked out for us. My father ended up receiving... He ended up being on the transplant list for about three weeks. And then he got a heart. He got a brand new heart. Brand new to him. But he got a heart transplant. We still don't know the family that gave it to us. We wrote a letter, but we're still waiting to hear back. But we got a heart transplant. He was in the hospital. It's crazy. They... They did the surgery in three hours. And that's from the time that they take out the old heart and put in the new heart and then kind of discharge him into the ICU ward where he's going to relax for a few days. Um, but six days after the surgery, he was already at the hospital. He was walking, talking, feeling, feeling great. And, um, you know, every six months now he has to go back in for routine check and they do biopsy. They make sure. 

The heart's still continuing to work. He's on obviously lots of medication to make sure his, um, his heart, you know, doesn't his body accepts his heart and doesn't reject it. But during that entire process, and I would say that lasted about a year. We went through this, we went through all the steps to finally get the new heart, um, through different tests. Um, I got to really see the care teams and it was multiple care teams. It was one, it was the first care team at the hospital when he had the heart attack and the ICU. And it was the same nurses every night. And you talked about this, right? Care is love in your previous month's podcast. And you, they got to know our family. They got to know my mom, they got to know my sister, they got to know my fiance. And so they got to know us and they knew our schedules and our rhythms.  

And then you fast forward to when we got the heart transplant team. And his main nurse that he talks to every day, they got to know my kids, they got to know his grandkids, they got to see pictures of them at every checkup. And so that experience that we went through and we still continue to go through it, because he still has to get checkups every six months, has been a testament of, that was a real life just hit of this is the healthcare industry. 

These are people that have gone to school and they're so skilled at what they do that they're helping my father make sure he gets to live another day, gets to see his grandchildren. And so to them, you know, it's, I'm thankful for their expertise, their skills, their knowledge, their expertise of what they have. Care is love for them because they get to do something great. 

When we talk about careers and aging and for me, you know, understand the aging industry and being unfiltered, this story is my fuel of wanting to always give back. And it's giving back to those who are in the healthcare world to say, this is how I can do it. But you've also taken care of a loved one for me, which is my father. And it can be somebody else's parent or grandparent at any time.  

Amanda 

That's beautiful, Rahim. Thank you for sharing. I'm like tearing up and I got goosebumps like three times.  

Rahim 

It was a remarkable experience and you know, he got to actually hold his old heart. They kept it. 

Amanda 

No way! 

Rahim 

Yep, he donated it for them to study it. And about six months after his heart transplant, he got to actually go meet with the researcher at Baylor University down here in Dallas. And they dissected his heart. They had already dissected it and studied it and, and found all the fatty tissues, but he got to play with it. He has a picture of him holding his old heart. It's just, it's a remarkable experience that he had going there that day. And we kind of framed that picture to kind of give him a testament to say, listen, you've already used one heart. You've been given the gift of life. You need to kind of continue to take care of yourself. And that's not only your physical, but your mental self so that you don't use the second heart that's been given to you. Don't take it for granted.  

Amanda 

Thank you for sharing and being unfiltered with us. And I super appreciate your work and everything that CLA does for our membership. And it's great to come alongside you and your team and just appreciate you.  

Rahim 

Thank you, Amanda. And thank you to the entire LeadingAge Texas team. You guys have done a phenomenal job continuing to not only serve the communities and the residents and the members, but also let us you know, your business partners or sponsors really be part of this community as well. So thank you for bringing us along for the ride. 

Amanda | Outro 

Thanks for tuning in to Uplift Aging, a production of LeadingAge Texas. Check out this episode's show notes for more about LeadingAge Texas, today's guest, and the Uplift Aging movement. Until next time, join us on socials at Uplift Aging as we continue to elevate the conversation on aging.