S2 E04: Living the Dash: Storytelling That Transforms How We See Aging | with Nathan Jones & Shelby Rayner
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Amanda is joined by Nathan Jones and Shelby Rayner of Dash Media (a LeadingAge Texas gold sponsor), a storytelling and social media agency working with aging services providers across the country.
Nathan, a former college football coach, found his way into aging services after a sermon about "the dash" on a gravestone representing the life that is lived. Shelby built her career insenior living sales and went viral making videos with her grandmother, Nanny, before joining Dash.
They share what it takes to tell these stories well and lessons they've learned from interviewing 1000+ people in aging services organizations.
Takeaways
The dash is the part you get to choose. The dates on either end are fixed. How you live in between is not.
Storytelling is a system, not a project. Consistent, resident-led storytelling moves the needle on culture, leads, and workforce.
The best content starts with dignity. The protagonist is always the resident or employee, not the organization.
How someone feels after sharing their story matters as much as the story itself.
Workforce starts with visibility. Many don't know these roles exist in aging services, and telling those stories is how the field grows.
Special Links & Resources
Dash Media's socials:
Senior Living Stories — the aggregator account Nathan started in 2017
Shelby's book: Grandma's in the Phone!
Two of Shelby's TikTok Videos with "Nanny" that started it all: The Rockettes! & "How do you think you've lived to be 97?"
LeadingAge Texas Annual Conference & Solutions EXPO — use code: UPLIFT for a discount
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This episode is made possible by LeadingAge Texas' Partners: Communities of Faith, RRG, LeadingAge Texas Health Plan, Inc., Value First, and Ziegler.
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Visit upliftaging.org/episodes for show notes and more information about each episode.
Join the movement as we continue to elevate the conversation on aging by visiting upliftaging.org and following us on our socials @upliftaging.
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The Uplift Aging Podcast is a production of LeadingAge Texas.
Transcript (auto-generated)
Intro (00:03)
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.
Amanda (00:26)
I am so excited to have Nathan Jones and Shelby Rayner with us from Dash Media. Thank you guys for joining Dash Media one of our sponsors at Leading Age Texas, so just want to be upfront about that and a great platform and company that we are able to partner with in different ways and that our members are able to be bringing onto their campuses.
So, really excited to have y'all here and honestly, I'm excited to learn more about each of you. So Nathan, I would love to start with you: could just kind of introduce yourself, what you do at Dash, then also, I'd love to hear more about your origin story. We know that you were a college football coach and then somehow you ended up in aging services. Can you tell us more?
Nathan Jones (01:09)
Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for asking us to do this. We're excited to chat. I coming up on, guess, 11 years ago, I finished up coaching ball at the University of Georgia. was the guy that did like the signals on the sideline that that signaled in the play. And my dad was a football coach for 40 plus years. My parents were both teachers. And so that's really all I knew. And
I got out of coaching, didn't really know what I wanted to do with my life. I had a teaching degree and I knew I didn't want to be a teacher. And so I said, what do I do? it's kind of a multi-part story. I'll tell you the brief version. I was kind of lost. I heard this sermon at church in 2016 about the dash. And whenever someone passes away, there's a date you're born on your gravestone and there's a date you pass away and you can't really control those two dates. But all you can control is how you live that little dash in between those two dates. And at this point I didn't knew nothing about senior living, nothing about aging services. I had St. Christmas carols when I was five years old at a nursing home in rural North Carolina and was terrified to go back, honestly. It didn't smell great, it was kind of scary. And so that was my view.
Eventually, a year after I heard that sermon invited me to a senior living community, thought, you know, that's kind of scary. That's a scary place. I don't know if I want to go there. And so they convinced me to come to this grand opening. I went up and I just fell in love with these five residents that had moved in and just the stories that they had. The place was unbelievable. The community that that they were they were living in and.
And I was just kind of mad at myself for thinking negatively about aging services, about getting older. And so I ended up visiting communities just on my free time, working with a small startup at the time, but really just to spend time with residents and learn about it. And I ended up working for four years as a tech sales guy at a company now called Life Loop.
But while I was there, I...just developed this passion for storytelling and it eventually led and I can share more about it, but eventually led into seeing this need to help organizations share their stories. And so I started Dash Media based on that 2016 sermon in 2022. So January of 2022. So we're almost four and a half years old.
Amanda (03:43)
I really have always appreciated the naming of it. I feel like when you first see it, you don't really think that much about it, and then you hear the reason for the Dash and what it actually means to y'all. And it is just so beautiful and so important. And I feel like we oftentimes forget that we are, like you said, in control of we live that dash. So thank you for the reminder.
Amanda
Shelby, you built your senior living sales, is that right?
Shelby Rayner
⁓ Yes
Amanda
⁓ And then can't wait to hear more about the book that you've written I would love to hear how that kind of folds into your story. And you starting to make videos, was it with your grandmother on TikTok?
Shelby Rayner
⁓ Yeah
Amanda
⁓ So tell us, yeah, about how all of that kind of came together you got to Dash.
Shelby Rayner (04:27)
Yeah, so thank you again for having us. So I guess it all started with my obsession for my grandmother. And just, we were just two peas in a pod, two besties. You know, I always say she was like my soulmate. And her husband, so my grand-Jack, I was really close with both of them growing up.
But he would always even say when he would see us interacting, he'd be like, you two are just like meant to be. And so we just had like a really sweet deep connection from the beginning. And so I think because I had this love for my grandma, it kind of made me lean more towards senior living as far as what could I see myself doing? Like what makes me happy spending time with my grandma?
Okay, now let's kind of go down that path. So at college, I studied human development with a focus on gerontology. And then I was going to go and be an occupational therapist and primarily work with seniors. But I kind of decided maybe, like maybe I'll kind of explore other careers and then kind of see where it ends up. So I did a few things here and there. And then ultimately I still then ended up where I worked in sales in the senior living community. And I absolutely loved it. It was the best. Just walking in.
And obviously we work with a lot of senior living communities. And I always tell them like, how nice is it every day you get to walk into this place and you just it feels like home. You see all these residents and it's just like just this warm, happy feeling. And so I love that we get to be a part of capturing that happy feeling and then sharing that with others to make sure that people know how fantastic it is and what these places have to offer.
But so I absolutely loved sales and senior living. For a little bit I lived in LA. I moved out to the West Coast and my family's on the East Coast and I absolutely loved it but I missed my grandma. so we would always FaceTime. Then that kind of sparked in my mind, like, what about a children's book where it's about a little boy who FaceTimes with his grandma? And as well, I always, I saw like my nephew growing up and would always kind of want to encourage him to FaceTime with my grandma and kids that I would babysit. I was always trying to encourage them to FaceTime with their relatives, but I always kind of saw them holding the phone and waving the phone around and not paying attention.
So thought there should be a book that just like shows them what can you do with your grandma on the phone? So that kind of sparked the idea and I was FaceTiming my grandma all the time.
Then I moved back to the East Coast ultimately to just be with her. I just knew that, you know, time is so precious. I wanted to spend it with her. So that's when I was then working in senior living. Then me and my grandma started making videos. Mostly really in COVID is when they kind of started to take off.
And we were just doing videos together because it was fun. We were just having fun with it. And I also loved that it challenged my grandma. So I called her nanny. So it challenged nanny to when we would do dances together, it really kind of challenged her memory and it got us moving and it got her thinking. So I liked that, you know, it did that. And then our videos started to take off. Some of them started to go viral and I think it was like the the Today Show did a shout out. Like people posted about us just random little things here and there. E! news at one time.
And then so I guess Nathan then saw a video of mine. He then reached out and was like this person sounds like someone interesting I can talk to and see if there's a way that maybe we could work with them more of like the influencer route. And then as Nathan and I started talking, he explained what Dash Media does. And I said, that is the coolest thing ever. I've never even thought in my wildest dreams that there's something out there that did that and never put two and two together.
And he also, he complimented me. He said, you must, like you do these, so we didn't only do dancing videos, I would sit down with my nanny and interview her and ask her like, you know, life lessons. And he said, you must be really good at the questions that you're asking her. And I was like, wow, thank you for that compliment. I've never been acknowledged for the part that I play and the wisdom that she shares. Because you know, everyone's just like, my God, that's great. I'm like.
Nathan Jones (08:37)
⁓ This is it.
Yes.
Shelby Rayner (08:46)
⁓ There's a little bit of talent on my side for knowing how to ask that and kind of get that out and how I edit it. So he complimented me there. And I was like, that is really nice. Thanks for making me feel seen. then we just started talking. was like, we're looking for someone to possibly join our team. Would you be interested? And I thought, yeah, that would be amazing. Then I can kind of be on the other side and help to share more seniors from stories. And then...
That's where then I joined Dash Media and then I think it's three years, Nathan? Yeah.
Nathan Jones (09:16)
⁓ Yeah, we did just celebrate - I think this week is three years.
Shelby Rayner (09:19)
⁓ Yeah, so three years they've flown by, they've been great and I absolutely love it. I love what we're doing and I really believe in what we're doing as well.
Amanda (09:28)
Where in this story or where in this sort of journey did it become more than a job, or when did you become aware that like this is your mission?
Shelby Rayner (09:38)
So there's no like specific time, I would say that a big reminder about what we're doing is it happens in many ways, but when we're reviewing videos and we're seeing the videos that we're making and the stories that we're able to share, I think when we then see the results of those videos, so we look at the analytics and we see how many video views there are or captions or just even from the teams that we work with reaching out and saying how much they like the videos and what they're doing for their team and the results that it's giving.
And then I think also just being able to, every now and then I can go on a shoot and help with the videographers and things like that. And just walking into a senior living community, seeing the people that we're working with, sitting down for an interview, that is like when I sit there, I'm like, my gosh. This is, if we weren't here right now, if this wasn't something that we were doing, this person that I'm sitting with wouldn't be able to share their story.
And I can tell that sitting here and talking with them is, I mean, they say it to me, right? They say that was the most, that was such a fantastic time that I spent with you telling you about myself. Like I didn't expect to have such a good time. They're so touched and you can feel it and you can genuinely feel like, that it really is making them feel seen, which is what really everyone in the world just wants to be.
We just want to be seen and heard and it's making them feel good and they deserve that. And I also know that what they're sharing is going to impact others. So being able to be a part of that in the moment, I think that is those moments that maybe when I text Nathan and I'm like, this is so cool. Like it really fills you up.
Nathan Jones (11:24)
Yeah, that's the best kind of feedback. think that's the thing that also people usually hire us for business goals and then they compliment us for what Shelby just said is how it made like their culture and how it made the people feel they got to share their stories. It's not necessarily like always just what you get out of the stories. It's what the person who shares their stories gets out of it. And I think that's what we get most excited about at Dash, but it's like, it's never really part of the sales process because no one really like understands the impact. So you actually see it with people that you know, but that's really powerful.
Um, for me, I, it all kind of changed. Uh, I listened to this book called the infinite game by Simon Sinek. And he talked about like having your just cause and your just cause is like, it's more than a why it's more of like. You're the book is called infinite game. So it's like moving towards something that you never are going to win or lose. You're just want to keep playing the game, to move closer to this unattainable goal, which is the mission of the company. And so the perfect job is when your business just cause intersects with your personal just cause. And so for Dash, the just cause, the mission is to engage the world through the eyes of older adults.
And so we'll never...engage the world through the eyes of older adults, but we're moving towards that mission. So we'll never achieve it, but we're going to keep going in that direction. And my personal, you know, just cause people always ask like, why are you obsessed with old people? Like my friends outside of the industry. And it's honestly not, I don't have this obsession with quote unquote old people or older adults.
It's more of just people and I love stories and I love learning and the people with the best stories that know the most stuff that has the most life experience get asked the least for their opinion or their story or questions. And I wanted to change that. mean, it was just baffling to me as like I'm learning and feel so much better when I leave these conversations with older adults. I want more of this and it's more of the people that need to tell their stories more. And it happened to be seniors.
And so my personal just cause was to be able to share more stories where people can be inspired and kind of use social media for good and not the mindless scrolling. And then my personal fate, so at the center of our logo, you'll see a cross. I think the best story in the world started with a cross. There's this personal mission that people share their testimonies with us all the time. They share like life advice and wisdom of how they have joy in the hardest moments and all these just beautiful things that intersects with our business of engaging the world through the eyes of older adults. And so for me, that's when the job became more than a job, when I was able to kind of connect those dots.
Amanda (14:24)
I feel like that's the goal, right? To find that intersection that you have found. There are so many people in this field who feel that way, right?
Nathan Jones
Yeah.
Amanda
When an organization comes to you, does it actually look like? what do you do what changes for them? walk us through a little bit of that
Nathan Jones (14:41)
So usually people come to us because they've relied on like life enrichment directors or community sales and marketing directors to manage social media or create stories while doing a full-time job. And it works for a few weeks and then it becomes overwhelming and a big burden and you just stop doing it or you kind of revert to like the holiday graphics. And so people come to us for social, for leads and for videos.
Once we start working with them, it's really more of like this movement to change how people view aging and to really have this storytelling engine that can be shared in after job interviews. can be shared in your sales discovery room. These stories can kind of filter and fill in all throughout your organization. Social media is a piece of that. And so what?
People start working with us to kind of fill this need of we need somebody to own social media. We need somebody to capture these stories and we want video done because we know that we need video for our website and we need video for all these things. They continue to work with us because of how it makes the people feel they get to tell their story because it reminds people of like why they do what they do every single day for their job. And it brings these good business results as well. It attracts people for jobs and it attracts people to come tour the community.
But I think the feeling that you get from seeing, know, Cleon from Lutheran Sunset's story and like, and how many people he impacts. I think when you see that, it just reminds you of like on those hard days, like I want to keep taking care of Cleon. I want to go show up to work today with a good attitude because I know Cleon's story and I know what he did before he got here and I know what he's passionate about.
And so I think those videos kind of serve so many different purposes. And that's ultimately why people have stuck with us. Outreach and consistent sharing and not just these one off, like random video projects that they're, you know, that's the traditional way to do video.
Shelby Rayner (16:55)
It's about like thinking about, we're a part of the team. So the people that we work with, we're an extension of their team, not just like that third party working with them to post videos.
And also, it's funny too, like a lot of people that we work with sometimes, you know, you're so busy. Like I remember when I was in the senior living world and I was in the sales role, you're running around like crazy. You've got so many things going on. It's hard to find the time to sit down with your residents and get to know them and hear these stories from start to finish. Of course you give them a little bit of time, but you can't, you know, learn everything.
And so sometimes when we make these stories and we put it out, all of a sudden now people are learning so much more about their residents that they never really knew. And so that also is inspiring. Like Nathan said, like, okay, I really want to go to work and help Kleon and they get to know them a little bit more on a deeper level, which is, encourages those that are going to work. And it just kind of builds a little bit of a stronger community.
Nathan Jones (17:54)
And some of the stuff you can't even predict like Lutheran Sunset, there were these two gentlemen thing in their upper 80s. They started like building custom walking. They call them walking sticks and they're very specific that they weren't called canes. And that video got like 30,000 views. And Rodney told me that, it was either Rodney or Lance, told me that they had random people coming by the community to see it and to buy a walking stick from these guys and get it autographed from them. So it's like that you could never imagine that or predict something like that.
We had a client in the Northeast went viral and the mayor of the city got contacted by the VP of Dunkin Donuts because a video went viral where Dunkin Donuts surprised this hundred year old in the drive-through with a free donut. Next thing you know, they're doing a whole PR event at the community where the mayor gave this lady a key to the city and the community free Dunkin' Donuts for the whole year.
And so like to say that that could happen, we would never be able to predict that. But because they focused on storytelling for the sole purpose of this person's stories matter, it resonated with people and they weren't trying to get something out of their story. They were really sharing it with the right intentions. I think that's what Leaning Age Texas members do so well compared to a lot of different organizations is they're, know, the Blue Skies and Lutheran Sunsets and Methodist Retirement Communities that we work with, they're all really sharing the story to make this the resident, the protagonist or the employee, the protagonist of the story, not the organization. I think that's why it resonates and performs so well on social.
Amanda (19:32)
It's that "main character energy" that it's giving. ⁓
Nathan Jones (19:34)
Yeah, right.
Amanda (19:37)
The conventional wisdom and aging services, hasn't always been go get on TikTok. Like that's how you make an impact, right? But here we are. And we're talking about what an impact like that makes. And @seniorlivingstories, the account reaching tens of millions of people at this point. That is amazing.
So, why are stories so impactful for aging services? What is it about the formula that y'all have created and that y'all use that connects people to older adults in a way maybe other media companies have not been able to tap into yet? What is different about this?
Nathan Jones (20:12)
The traditional way of storytelling is you hire someone to do your two to three minute website video. They come in, they film, they leave. Maybe you get a couple extra short form videos that are ads and then you're done. And then I think the way the world has people spend an average of two hours and 27 minutes a day on social media. And so, our attention span has dropped all the way down. I think it's like seven and a half seconds is the average attention span, which is smaller than a goldfish. So it's changed a lot.
So in senior living, and I had not seen the content really change. It was still kind of the cookie cutter videos. And so we really set out to how do you tell the same five to six messages in a thousand different ways through all of your different people in their own perspective, in their own stories. And so when you do that and you build the backend system to be able to do that, cause that's a lot of content, a lot of videos, a lot of operations. What happens is you're able to kind of lead with social because it gives you a first impression of what stories resonate with specific audiences.
But then what we've started to see is it can filter down into other areas of your business. for example, if you have a discovery room that while you go get someone a cup of coffee, maybe you play the top five to 10 best stories at your community for the person while you're away out of the room. so now, and then they fought, there's a QR code where they can follow your social media accounts. So when they leave the community, now four stories every week are showing up on that person's feed.
And so that's an aspect. You have a fundraising event that comes up. Well, you want to pull up people's heartstrings. You want to share your stories of the impact that your organization has had on the people. What if you had like a whole story bank and database full of these stories recorded? And so I think that the way that the world has turned is really important to have a system where you capture and share these stories to get information of like, what stories resonate on different platforms.
That's really how @seniorlivingstories was built is we would take the best performing content. That's how we use it now is like all of our clients, we take the best performing content and a few months after it's posted on their account, we'll reshare it on Senior Living as kind of like a, think of like a digital newspaper of sharing the best of senior living. And so it gives the organization additional exposure from a different account, which the algorithm loves, but it gives @seniorlivingstories this trusted place that aggregates all these stories together that one person, one place can follow so people follow things where they can kind of know what to expect that you're going to share.
And so I think that's why @seniorlivingstories grew because of the timing. When I started it in 2017, it was a lot easier to grow a bunch of followers and views back then. But it can still be done today and people are still reaching tons and tons of people.
Amanda (23:13)
Not all content ages well. Not all content about aging ages well, so to speak. Some of it can feel patronizing, some of it can feel like novelty driven, some of it just doesn't seem to reflect the true real dignity of the person or the complexity of life.
What separates the content that uplifts from the content that just performs? And what do y'all at Dash like specifically look for? And what do you refuse to do?
...Shelby, I feel like you touched on this a little bit about the compliments that you receive about like, wow, that was such a fulfilling piece of life for me to just chat with you. Talk us a little bit more through that. Like how do you get the stories? How do you interview these people in a way that is true to them, authentic to them?
Shelby Rayner (24:03)
I mean, I think all around you have to have the right team that's working on it. So you have to have the skills that you need with each person and with each part of the video. So of course you have to have the right equipment. And then so once you've got the right equipment, okay, now who's taking that equipment to a community?
It has to be the right people. It has to be someone who's skilled to use the equipment, someone who has a passion for seniors and aging services, and someone who knows how to have a conversation and be in the moment and ask the right questions. you know, we can't just send anybody and we can't just have any videographer join Dash and do this.
And it's very important to us that we're sending the right people and we try and also with the videographers that we have who are extremely talented, we try and specifically know which ones would kind of do best at this community and that community. So there's a lot of thought that goes into that. And then the questions that we're asking, you know, as a team, we're always trying to make sure that these questions are the right questions and they're, you know, kind of open-ended and they're gonna get interesting answers.
But then at the same time, like I said, just being in the moment so that you know when to kind of okay, this looks like that's really lighting up the person who's talking about this. Let's kind of go down that that area. And then of course, it's the skill of editing the videos and then the skill of putting it online and looking to see what performs well, what can we kind of tweak here and there so it's it's not just, you know, an easy film it, put it, post it, see what happens. It's bringing together the right people in the team to work on this and everybody playing their part.
What would you add to that, Nathan, if anything?
Nathan Jones (25:45)
No, that's great. Amazing.
I would say that to answer your other piece of that question: what do we stay away from? We don't trend dances. We'll do it if it's resident led, but I don't think we're not big fans of giving ideas for these like TikTok dances and saying, hey residents, y'all need to go do this and perform well for us, because for every one that we see that's like beautiful and great, there's 99 others that I just, feel odd watching that I feel like that it doesn't withhold the dignity of the person. even if they do reach millions of people, I don't feel like that you're reaching people aren't living. Now our exceptions to that were like Methodist Retirement Communities, their residents planned and filmed this whole, like they remade the intro to the show Friends. Hilarious, showed a fun, vibrant community while building into this spoof. So that was like a great example of trendy content.
But if you're just doing trends to do trends, or see a lot of like interns that come into the industry, they start working and they're doing these like voiceovers of Kim Kardashian and making residents mouth stuff. That's to me is a little bit strange. Maybe people disagree with that. I think that kind of stuff doesn't keep up with, it isn't good from a year from now. It might be good in the moment. It might get more views than telling someone's life advice, but I think it doesn't really do a good job of sharing what this organization really is about. The content really never gets old because when you focus on the story, every person's story is so different it's an unlimited supply of different perspectives and stories you can share.
Amanda (27:29)
...You're not just jumping on a trend for trends sake, right? The difference there is that it's showcasing, the vibrancy of the community.
And thank you, Shelby, for sharing too, like the behind-the-scenes. I feel like there's this kind social media, like, you just put up a camera and talk and just post it. And there can be so much more to it... strategy, so thoughtful, that goes into what you're doing. I feel like that gives us some context of like actually how much work goes into one, you know, however many second long video that we see on social media.
And yeah, thank you for pouring that much energy and time and effort into the people that y'all interview and showcase on socials. That is so commendable.
Shelby Rayner (28:16)
Thank you.
Amanda (28:18)
Beyond that, I love that y'all are able to to into communities over and over. I'm sure y'all have developed relationships with residents and, surely, staff. You're getting fresh content, but also that relationship building. That must feel wonderful.
Shelby Rayner (28:32)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan Jones (28:33)
It's great. The thing that meant the most to me is when we had our first child a year and a half ago, our very first client is A.G. Rhodes, it's a non-profit nursing home, three nursing homes in Atlanta, and asked me to film at like four o'clock on a Friday and I show up and I was like, four o'clock on a Friday, this seems...
Amanda (28:33)
Hmm.
Nathan Jones (28:50)
... why are you asking me to film at this time? But I showed up, it was like an hour and they actually had a baby shower, and all the residents had like diapers and toys.
For us, like our favorite clients, the ones that we do the best work for are the ones that treat us like we're part of their team. And so the LeadingAge Texas members all treat us like we're part of their team.
And I think it comes through in the content because the residents get more excited about sharing their story. And when we show up, so key where it's, you know, harder when you're doing just one shoot one time and then you're never, never seen those people again.
Amanda (29:24)
That's what you get so much out of, working with mission driven organizations like our members, them enveloping you into their culture, into their team seems to be what's happening there. That's lovely. It's like y'all are part of organizations all over the place.
Shelby Rayner (29:34)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. And like they genuinely also love filming days. You know, like a a lot of work goes into prepping for these filming shoots and getting the right people lined up and what time works for interviews and everything.
But the community team and the, you know, the people that we're working with on scheduling these, these are like the super fun days that they get to when they're joining in on interviews that they get to hear more from the residents.
Nathan Jones (29:38)
Yeah.
Shelby Rayner (30:04)
It's great, know, Nathan mentioned just for company culture. It's really great for that.
Amanda (30:09)
You've built this into something where the two of you are not able to be at every shoot as you were, four years ago, five years ago. What advice would you give to someone who's stepping into a leadership role and giving over something that they love so dearly to someone else, and helping build that person up, too.
Nathan Jones (30:28)
Do you want me to go first on that one?
Shelby Rayner (30:30)
Well, you're a fantastic leader. And I'm not just saying this, you should go first. You probably have a lot of good stuff to say.
Nathan Jones (30:37)
Well, I actually heard a podcast from someone that was an executive Chick-fil-A. And no matter if you're in Dallas, Texas, Atlanta, Georgia, Baltimore, Maryland, if you say thank you at a Chick-fil-A, what do they say back?
Amanda (30:51)
I'm trying to remember...what is it? My pleasure? Is that right?
Nathan Jones (30:53)
My pleasure. That's right. They say my pleasure every time. And so is that because the person in their everyday life responds that way? Or is that because they operationalize how to treat someone when they give you a compliment? And that's what it is. It's really operationalizing your culture.
And so for us, there's little things like when you're setting up the mic and setting up the camera and there's a senior that's sitting there, you don't just sit in silence and then you say, all right, ready, action. What's your name?
You're saying, so where are you from? Did you always grow up here? Why did you grow up here? You're going to learn a lot about them that you can utilize in the interview. And then you say, what did you do in your life? Why did you pick a career as a teacher? You're going to hear because they love students or they have this faith that they love. You're going to hear because their spouse did X, Y, or Z. And so they have a smile on their face, they feel comfortable with who they're talking to, and you're able to really dive into what they care about.
And so those are the kinds of things we train on. And then any hotel executive will tell you the most important thing is how someone feels when they leave the hotel, if they're gonna come back. And so for us, one of the things that we're really building in is like, when you get done with an interview, shake the person's hand and say, thank you for sharing your story today. And that...gives people the last thing, the impression of, well, that made me feel really good. I did do a good job of sharing my story. And so they're going to go tell their friends at the community. was a fun, Dash Media cares.
It's little things like that, that pull these stories out, but it's operate, you know, from a business leader standpoint, you were just operationalizing culture of how you're supposed to treat people. Because if you don't do that, it's, you know, people are going to do things different ways and we're learning. mean, we don't do it perfectly all the time. We sure probably don't say that after every interview, but we do hear a lot from seniors that we made them feel a certain type of way after they got to share their stories where you don't traditionally hear that after video shoots in a senior living organization.
Shelby Rayner (32:58)
I would say just like at its core, what I think what we're doing is like be a good person, do good, you know, make people feel good. And and like, again, we're we're passionate about what we're doing. So we're not just in there, get the information, get out. And ⁓ and I think whenever like our teams, you know, we're talking about this, that this is important that what we're doing and and what is our passion and our mission.
And so it does like trickle down to all of the team.
Nathan Jones (33:26)
Yeah, I would say that what I just said is like the back half of it. The front half is it's gotta be people like. It's gotta be a good good person in the role like my lesson. I learned first year with Dash, I hired a local wedding videographer who could care less, who couldn't care less about seniors and their story. Couldn't use a single second of the footage because it was so uncomfortable how he was asking questions and all that so, like you do have to have someone who has a heart for this and a passion to share their stories and then teach them how to think through that heart and passion to display it. Because some people may not be good at displaying how much they care. And so teaching them different tricks that they can use to outwardly show that they care.
Amanda (34:11)
Solid leadership lesson. Thanks guys.
What is the most important thing that we haven't talked about today?
Shelby Rayner (34:19)
I think we've talked about a lot of good stuff. Just that, you know, I think we're excited to continue to do this.
Kind of talking to someone that maybe is thinking about adding this to their budget or is currently working with us. Like, keep doing what you're doing.
And then for those that aren't able to do this quite yet, share stories from the seniors and from people who work at your community. Keep striving to get to that point so that you can share those stories because it really is important. It really is impactful. And it's amazing to be a part of...I want that for more people.
Nathan Jones (34:56)
That's good.
For me, I'll share what I shared at the end of my, I started sharing at the end of last year, the end of my presentations. And so we've interviewed a thousand seniors to this point, over a thousand, and we learned so much and not, not everybody we interview is just this like super joyful and happy person. You can really feel it when you sit down and like the first second or the first 30 seconds.
And so for me, the biggest lesson that I've learned is the seniors that radiate the most joy aren't necessarily the ones that have chased success in their life defined by the world. So reaching money or status or fame or anything like that. The people that always radiate the most joy in their 80s and 90s and hundreds are the ones who prioritize their family, who showed up for the relationships when they are needed the most. Who expressed gratitude before taking any credit themselves, so super humble people, who abundantly were generous with their time and money and always seemed to give more than they received. They spoke with humility when they were asked about their accomplishments. They weren't afraid to laugh, smile, or cry with a stranger. A lot of tears have been shed through these storytelling. They radiated love through their energy with others. They were the ones who shared that in their difficult times, they learned to look up rather than put their head down. And mostly they were the ones who poured their faith into God and they spoke boldly about it and had kind of a hope of what happened next for them and didn't dread what happened next in their life.
And so the stories can have a tremendous impact on organizations. They can help your bottom line and bring in more money or bring in people to want to work there. But I think the really greatest impact that hearing these stories will have is on the people that get to hear them. It'll affect your personal life. And for me and Shelby, we've kind of accidentally stumbled into this world of senior living and storytelling. And I think we would both tell you that our entire perspective on life is kind of shaped by this industry.
Shelby Rayner (37:05)
Mm-hmm.
Amanda (37:05)
That is so beautiful. What I got from that is: the people who have the most joy are truly living their dash so boldly and authentically.
My last question for y'all is to complete the sentence.
Shelby, I'll have you go first: "I Uplift Aging by..."
Shelby Rayner (37:24)
I uplift aging by...being...positive.
Shelby Rayner (37:35)
Positive energy, I think.
Literally what Nathan said is just how you make people feel is the most important who I'm around, I want to make them feel good, feel like they have purpose, identity, that we're connecting. I think those things can kind of, as you're aging, you can kind of maybe feel a loss of those things, connection, your identity, and all of that.
So I think being able to provide that, being able to make those that are aging to still feel that is important. And even those, anybody who's working in this industry, to make them feel good while they're working in this industry is good.
Amanda (38:13)
How about you Nathan?
Nathan Jones (38:14)
I uplift aging by...serving people who are way more talented than I am to put them in the best position to tell the stories of the people that live and work in senior living communities.
To bring my football analogy into it, being the coach to a team of putting each player in the best position to have the organization win, have the person win as a storyteller or a leader or a social media manager, and then the senior, the one that matters the most, the senior or the employee of the community. To put them in a position to feel comfortable with sharing their story and feel good about the opportunity to get to do that.
Amanda (39:03)
Shelby and Nathan, tell the people where to follow you guys. How do they get connected with on the socials?
Nathan Jones (39:08)
So at my dash media, D-A-S-H spelled out on any social media platform. Highly recommend going to check out Shelby's personal channel as well. Her old videos with Nana, with The Rockettes and Katy Perry lyrics and the wisdom and the butter and the ice cream. There's so many fun videos that you guys should go watch. They're awesome.
Amanda (39:30)
Fabulous. Well, we will put those links in the show notes as well. So thank you.
And then of course, the people can always see on our account at Uplift work that Dash does.
⁓ Oh yeah, I wanted to touch on our annual conference, next month we will have Dash Media with us. So for any listeners who are coming to Annual, you'll see Charlotte there. There'll be interviews with some of our board members and members and they'll just kind of be around the Annual Conference. If anyone wants to chat more about services that y'all provide, they can ask her all the questions and get to know a little bit more about Dash in person if you're gonna be in Austin in May. So look forward to that.
I will close this out like you taught me: Thank you for sharing your story today, both of you. Truly.
Shelby Rayner (40:16)
Thank you.
Nathan Jones (40:18)
Yes, thanks for having us on.
Outro (40:22)
Thanks for tuning in to Uplift Aging, a production of LeadingAge Texas. Check out this episode's show notes for more about Leading Age 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.