Matt Reiners is the Co-Founder and Vice President of Eversound, a hearing solution company dedicated to improving the quality of life for elders.  Recently, he had a conversation with our own Laura Ellen Christian about the future of training and education for the senior living industry.  

We are talking a lot about empathy lately.  I see many posts, blogs and articles on the subject because so many feel that it is severely lacking in this current time.  Social psychologists are having a field day dissecting what has gone so wrong, and why.  

AGE-u-cate's CEO Pam Brandon sent each team member a jar containing one inspirational quote per week for 52 weeks.  Every Monday, we unroll our scroll and read the message to the team.  You may have seen Laura Ellen Christian on LinkedIn every Monday sharing a video reflection on her inspirational quote.

It is time to get serious about changing the onboarding process for new hires, and there is no time to lose.  Maggie Keen, Vice President of Corporate Development at MissionCare Collective delivered this impactful message for AGE-u-cate's February Virtual Road Trip entitled, "Building Culture:  Rethinking recruitment, onboarding, and retention to drive better care and a better workplace."  

Describing empathy as a lubricant creates visuals in my head like the annoying squeaky door hinge that finally gets some W-D40.  A lubricant softens rough edges, makes things work better, and a little bit goes a long way.  I think the same is true when we approach situations that we encounter in work and life from a place of empathy.  

I have experienced moments of confusion, like being on a business trip and waking up in an unfamiliar place and needing a moment to orient myself.  One time (or possibly more than once), I forgot where I parked my car at a large shopping mall.  With so many entrances to choose from, I could not remember which one I walked through to enter the mall.  Just a few weeks ago, I went through half of a day believing it was Thursday, and it was Wednesday- an entire HALF DAY!  

The 2021 winner of the Nobel Prize in Medicine has been awarded to Ardem Patapoutian. PhD, a neuroscientist at Scripps Research in La Jolla, CA for discovering cell receptors that enable people to sense heat, cold, pain, touch and sound.  The award¹ is shared with David Julius, a physiologist at the University of California San Francisco.