The Power of Play and Connection in Enhancing Quality of Life

Michael Hughes 00:07
Hello and welcome to The Art of Aging, which is part of the Abundant Aging podcast series from United Church Homes. On the show, we look at what it means to age in America and in other places around the world with positive and empowering conversations that challenge, encourage and inspire everybody everywhere to age with abundance. Today, we are pleased to welcome Ted Fisher to the show, and Ted is something that I’ve wanted to get on the show for a long time, given his really amazing story in the Aging and Longevity space, particularly creating solutions that engage all the older audiences through play Ted. Welcome to the show.

Ted Fisher 00:40
Thank you. Nice to be here. Mike, awesome.

Michael Hughes 00:43
And I gotta read your bio here, man, because it is lengthy. But I want people to know who you are, Ted,

Ted Fisher 00:49
just so you know.

Michael Hughes 00:52
Well, hey, for Ted’s Mom, this is what Ted’s done. Okay, Ted has been his career building, working with a leading collaborative teams committed to achieving positive financial and social impact as CEO of ageless innovation TED is focused on accelerating the growth and impact of the joy for all brand which we’ll get to and which we at United Church rooms have been using and enjoying that he and his former Hasbro team have spun out and acquired from Hasbro, and we’re going to get into that story too. He joined Hasbro in 2015 as the vice president of business development to help lead the identification and execution of new growth platforms primarily focused in the health and wellness space. At Hasbro, Ted led the launch of Hasbro’s joy for all brand on the 25th which we like to call the robotic pets, but I know it’s more than that, all right, which is the company’s first product line developed specifically for older adults. Prior to Hasbro, he held executive level positions at Fisher consulting, connected to Bay Capital Advisors, one neck IT services and duro industries. He’s a smarty pass. He holds a BA from Boston College, double majoring in economics and philosophy, which is a heck of a heck of a combination. Yeah, he’s written a lot of papers, and is a graduate of the program for Management Development at Harvard Business School. No one’s ever heard of that school, by the way. Yeah. His greatest accomplishments are his 34 year marriage to his wife Lisa, their three adult children and his new granddaughter, some gradual shins on that Ted again. Welcome.

Ted Fisher 02:14
Thank you. Appreciate it. Yeah, if I didn’t sit with the grandfather thing, my favorite title so far, by far, yeah.

Michael Hughes 02:22
Oh, that’s great. And I’m glad I got through that, because, I mean, you got a great history in business development, and look, you know, this is what I love, to open up the show with. You could be doing a lot of things, man. I mean, you know what has led you into this world of aging? Why are you so passionate about the aging space? Yeah,

Ted Fisher 02:41
great question. And thank you again for having me on and you know, I have appreciated and watched what you do, and United Church homes and their ambition, and it’s just so aligned with who we are as well. And so you know, you and I see each other quite a bit on the road, and always enjoy our time together. So the chance to get to have a chat with you today is fantastic. So really interestingly, you know, I say all the time, you know, I’m a serial entrepreneur, and that’s the way I describe it. My wife says that I can’t keep a job. So it’s really all perspective, right? And so going was one of the things I did a lot of at an early stage, you know, companies and startups before Hasbro and, you know, a friend of mine was the CEO of the company. We had this really brief conversation one night, and he then called me the next day, said I got an idea, and that’s kind of how the conversation started. And honestly, never in my life have I thought about working at a public company. I, you know, for most of the last 30 years of my life, I had been either my own boss or, you know, the founder, or, you know, in some senior position. And so with the opportunity to go to this amazing company, which was right now my backyard in Rhode Island, where I lived, and, you know, the idea of this new business group was, you know, that was really about, you know, being an entrepreneur inside of a five, $6 billion you know, public company, which was pretty enticing for someone who fencing themselves to be an entrepreneur. And we had really a blank canvas there. And as we started to explore, really, the mandate was to try and leverage Hasbro’s assets in new markets and new channels, right? So they didn’t need to hire me to figure out another toy in that Kid Toy out. They were pretty good at that. And so, you know, as we we dove into this idea of and the reason we chose health and wellness because all the data pointed to the fact that health and wellness has all these great programs and data, and they’re just terrible at engaging people into things that are great for them, right, or even helping people know that they exist. And I thought Hasbro’s real assets, despite all the brands and how great they were at, you know, at creating toys and entertainment, their ability to engage in gamify and, you know, make meaningful connections. I felt like those two things married up so well, the health and wellness piece and what was what I was good at. And so, fast forward a bit, as we started to look at this planned campus we were exploring what is. What are the things that you know, maybe in the past, in Hasbro’s history, had some relevance to what we were exploring. So we were looking for unintended end uses, unintended end users of products. And we actually found, you know, this data, about 20 some years ago, there was a product that was initially designed for 48 year old girls, and it was a 48 year old girl, not 48 year old girls, yeah, four to eight year old. I don’t think they have that category anymore, but that was the category time. I don’t think they designate that way anymore. It was called 48 year old girls, four to eight year old girls and so and about 20% of the reviews of this product, it was an animatronic toy. Were mom not buying it for their you know, their daughter, but buying it for an aging loved one, and then writing these reviews about how this toy product was having this really meaningful impact. And so that was the key insight, and the first time that we thought about the aging space. So it was a long preamble to your question. But as we started to explore this space, literally every single person we started going to assisted living, you know, independent living, memory care, anybody who kind of let us in the door to explore, are we on to something here? And what we found were two things that literally hit you over the head. One, every single older adult you talked to wanted more fun, joy and play in their life. Yep, no one had said, I don’t want to have fun anymore. No one has decided an age where they want to stop having fun. Yet, society and culture, we kind of, you know, we get to a certain place, and people tell us we’re too old for that, and so we’ve been trying to dispel that stigma since we started this thing. So that was one, and then two, there was this incredible need for interactive companionship. And that was, there were a lot of people, not a lot, at that time, 10 plus years ago, trying to figure that out. But there was, what we were hearing from people, is, it was we didn’t, you know, it wasn’t technology, it wasn’t us, it was realism, it was something they were so as we started to explore. We showed older adults a ton of different things, from arching crafted technology, and we showed them these animatronic toys. And hard away this idea that you gave something and got something back. You gave a pet, you got a meow, you got a bark, you got whatever, which just resonated with people. And so the last point on your first question is the day that I knew that this was a space that we needed to be in. We have this place at Hasbro called the fun lab. And the fun lab typically is a place where, you know, it’s the glass wall mirrored, and on one side it looks like a living room or a bedroom. You can set it up for any sort of scenario. Behind it, all the designers and engineers, and they watch, typically, children come in to play with new concepts, or, you know, they put a bunch of things out, see what resonates, what needs explanation, what doesn’t. It’s a whole list. And in order to get into the fun lab, you have to, like, write, do a multi page, write up. And it’s a very scientific sort of place, but it is the coolest place ever, because you get to see the reaction of people for the first time. So we brought a group of older adults, for the first time ever, into the fun lab, and showed them all these things. And as we watched the incredible joy and happiness that was happening, I was trying to figure out, what is it that, you know, and the woman who runs a fun life, this what she does every day of her life. So she has the best job in the world. She came out to me. She goes, this the best day we’ve ever had here. I’m trying to figure out why that is, and here’s why, as I kind of watch it going, and I had watched many fun labs in the past, when children come into that room, they expect to play immediately. It’s not like that. No one thinks about it. It just is what it is like. There’s toys, there’s kids, there’s play. The older adults weren’t just having fun playing. They were so happy and excited that someone was thinking about them in this way that there was this ad like it was, I can’t even explain, I wish you were there, like it was the most fun day. And so, you know, if I wasn’t already passionate about this population, that day sealed the deal. And so, you know, as we, you know, explored a little further, it just became more and more obvious that there was almost nobody out there addressing this need for fun, joy and play in the older adults well. And also, what

Michael Hughes 09:11
you’re doing here TED is you’re, I mean, you know, Hasbro designs with, they design with their customers. And you’re one of the designers, you’re one of the earliest examples, people who are designing with older people, you know? I mean, that’s a big difference, right? I mean, it makes all the difference when you’re making something like this successful. Is it sticky? Will people engage? Will people come back?

Ted Fisher 09:33
Yeah, totally. And, you know, one of the things I’ll say about it, I was given this really great team of people to work with at Hasbro. So I got in there, I had like 15 people and designers and engineers and, you know, marketers and all sorts of folks. And I was, I’d never been a consumer, you know, CPG type of business before. That wasn’t my forte. But the only thing I’ll say I was smart enough to do is shut my mouth and listen. And what, you know, I. Heard from folks is, listen, we’re experts on kids. We know nothing about older adults. We need to ask them. And you know, from the first day, we said, you know, tell us, you know. Help us design. What do you want? So when I look at the features of our products, I can remember the, you know, the meetings where someone said you got to have the pop pads on the cats that are a little scratchy, like, but it meant something to somebody like that level of detail where, well, it, you know, I’m running a business, so I got to be cost conscious. And, you know, scruffy, scratchy paw pads cost a lot more than just like me, a piece of felt or something. So. But they would, you know, they wanted realism. And so my team, you know, was amazing at listening. Our whole design philosophy is, Listen, do something, show it to them, take the feedback, iterate, go back and do it again until they say, Boy, this really looks like a real cat, or this, you know, this game is really fun, or whatever it might be. And so, you know, older adults have been part of our design, you know, not just our design philosophy, they’ve been the designers really, which, by the way,

Michael Hughes 11:07
you just put a lot of human, centered design consultants out of business, because you literally, oh, my goodness, yeah. You bring your work with people. You ask them what they want. You understand their lived experience. You take their suggestions, you reiterate, you come back again and again. And and I just want to say, you know, for anybody out there in the industry that that has been trapped in a room with me and had to have, has had to listen to my, my speeches on innovation or whatever, I always give this speech about ROI, you know, from an innovation perspective. And I always say that there’s three types of ROI, you know, there’s one where it basically improves your efficiency, or improves your profitability, or whatever. And I always say it has to be a significant amount, not just a 5% increase in efficiency, like a 10x whatever. And then there’s the type of ROI where you learn more about the customer, you learn more about someone’s experiences, and you use those insights to create a better offering. And the third thing is that if you take this away from me, I’ll kill you, ROI and what that is, and they always end up for all robotic pets that we have at United Church homes that we use very much in our memory care units. Okay, I am the staff, you know. I don’t know by what person you probably know, but I don’t know by what percentage it decreases agitation or it improves sleep or whatever. All I know is that our residents love them and our staff, and the staff is like, if we, you know, if we take, if you take these away, I’m quitting. And so that alone is just, you know, it’s one of the very few things I’ve seen that has that stickiness and that impact. And when you sort of draw from that very first time in that controlled play environment, and now you think about anybody, everybody that’s out in these other buildings or contexts or whatever. I mean, that must make you feel pretty good, right?

Ted Fisher 12:49
Yeah. I mean, it really does. And thank you. Like testimonials like that. When you hear someone talk about, you know, the impact, but having you’ve seen it firsthand, and your staff and your teams have seen it firsthand,

Michael Hughes 13:01
floating the tactileness of the paw pads. I mean, that’s we get it, yeah, yeah.

Ted Fisher 13:07
And again. Well, you know, what we heard early on is this need for interactive companionship needs to be coupled with realism, right? So the idea of a cat and a dog and a bird and things that they’re familiar with, like, if they don’t really look or act like it then, and you’re not fulfilling a promise, one. And, you know, folks are telling you that a cat has those tapered whiskers versus straight whiskers, you know, little things like that, like they’re excluding machines that pull the whiskers screw, you know, and sort of, and it’s really easy to do straight whiskers because it’s just one clamp. It pulls it through. Tapered whiskers are, like, different length, yeah. So we had to, you know, our manufacturing partner had to design a machine to do that, you know. So that’s the level of detail, the craziness. But what we hear all the time is, what you just said is, you know, when people, and there’s a lot of technology, obviously, inside of the pets that you know, are sensors and motors and other things that respond to touch and the sound or whatever is interacting. But the reality is, it’s pretty simple. Because you’ve seen it. You pull it out of the box, and somebody takes it, they name it their old pet’s name, Rusty, or whatever it might be, and sort of the magic starts. And so you don’t have to explain it to people. You have to say, Oh, this is a cat, you know, you know, you pet it here. And obviously, you know, in memory care and some other areas, and maybe some more instruction needed, but typically, it’s just a reminiscence piece of something that’s very familiar, and that’s been, I think, part of the magic. And, you know, we’ve got, you know, over 600,000 of these out in the world today, and, you know, in about 30 countries. And I can tell you, I hear stories like the one you just told, it does not get old, you know, not one day I, you know, someone called me yesterday, and I gotta tell you the story, you know, somebody that I knew or gifted it to sell, you know, and you listen, and you almost have tears in your eyes, because you’re like, you know, this fairly simple, fun, joyful product can have, you know, a meaningful impact in someone’s life. And you know, quite honestly, I can’t ask for much more than that, right? But

Michael Hughes 15:00
here, but, but here’s the thing. You know. You know, this is a growing market. All right? You know this is, I can’t think of any. And I’ve said this on the show before, and I’ve said this in the rooms where people are trapping. I can’t think of anything more predictable in terms of future market demand than climate change and aging. You know, we’re talking about the first baby boomer turning 80 in 2026 we’re talking about more people over the age of 65 by 2034 by 2034 than under the age of 18, you know. But you went, you took this outside of Hasbro. You started ageless innovation with this product. How the heck did you pull that off? Yeah, so

Ted Fisher 15:35
it’s another, it’s another great story. I’ll keep it brief, but so, you know, inside. So in the beginning, in 2015 when I got to Hasbro, I had this really sort of, it was a, it was its own little environment that I, you know, I was given a lot of autonomy, which is something that I said, in order to come here, I need to have that. Because, self admittedly, what Hasbro wanted to do was they wanted to harness the innovation that was happening inside. And they’re not patient, right? They’re a public company, and so it’s a lot easier to buy a $100 million brand, turn into a $300 million brand than this, to start something at zero and get into a $100 million brand. And so the idea was, you know, and this isn’t the only thing that I worked on inside there. There were other things, other products on the product line that we did this thing, nerf energy and the kids healthy, active fitness space, it was really cool. But my passion and my desire was, you know, to try and focus as much of my energy and time on the older adult population. And that was getting harder and harder to do inside of Hasbro. And, you know, compounding that, three plus years in, we become a brand, as opposed to this new innovation. Now we’re fighting for marketing dollars. You know, I got to get everything passed through legal, and I scared the heck out of legal. I mean, honestly.

Michael Hughes 16:54
I mean, this is a knowing laugh, by the way.

Ted Fisher 16:58
They know about child privacy, COPA. FERPA, they know all those things so well. HIPAA, anyone knows? So I was so excited we went into the healthcare space, you know? So, yeah, I’ll give you an example. In 2000 we won our first award. It was the dementia smart Award, which S, M, A, R t is an acronym for simple, meaningful and so we won this great award. And the guy comes to Hasbro presented to me, the CEO, the president of the company, like we all and everything just is great, like, Ah, this wonderful year in and we’re winning awards and, and so, you know, now I’m trying to buy search words, you know, as part of our marketing strategy. And so I go to legal, I say, listen, here’s the list. You have got everything. Everything gets approved. It has, like, everything. So you have to have, you know, your search war is approved. And I have dementia there, and they’re like, you can’t use dementia. I’m like, Well, why? Like, well, I said, we won the dementia smart award. I said, you know, I just want to make mention of dementia smart awards. Like, it’s so great. Congratulations. No, I mean, it’s literally, like they and to them, there was a claim or a potential for and I totally get it. They’re doing their jobs. They are doing their jobs. I don’t blame it all, but my whole premise is that I can grow this business into a healthcare you know. So the business at Hasbro is a little different than the typical, which is my mandate, and it just got harder and harder and harder because of those types of things. And they knew it. They loved what we were doing. They loved the halo of, you know, we had this idea at Hasbro about expanding the share of life. And so, you know, if you looked at the share of life that Hasbro, you know, was really catering to with Dungeons and Dragons, and they had really up into the 40s, and, you know, they did a lot of, sort of, you know, really cool entertainment focused stuff at that. But up where I was sort of playing, I sort of expanded that share of life. And they loved it. They thought that was great. But in order to grow, we were going to need to do certain things that were just going to be against the grain. And then when it came to, you know, marketing budgets, you know, My Little Pony missed their numbers. You know, heads were rolling. I missed my numbers. No one even knew, right? So, because it was so small and it was so so, people in US marketing were like, Well, I gotta use this money over here. I can’t, you know, and so we were fighting for those things. So, as all this started to unravel, I, you know, I kind of met with the president. I said, Listen, you know, there’s a real opportunity here. For all the reasons you just said, I showed them that population demographics like this could be a big part of the business. I said, I think it’s gonna be harder to do here than I anticipated. And I said, you know, maybe there’s an opportunity that every new innovation at Hasbro doesn’t have to live at Hasbro to benefit Hasbro. And so, yeah, he’s like, come with you. I have been an investment banker in the previous iteration of my career. And so I said, you know, I think there’s an opportunity to maybe spin this thing out, and maybe, you know, create its own. And for the first, you know, the first time that I know of, and that anybody that you know was around at that time knew of, it was the first time they had ever done this. And so we came up with a deal. Works, and we, you know, my team, I got to take most of my team with me, and so my co-founders were the folks who have been part of joy for all since day one. We left in, you know, March, April, time frame of 2000 and, you know, sort of consummated the deal like May of 2018 over six years ago, started ageless innovation and then acquired all joy for all brands and assets and all that. And then we were able to focus 100% on older adults and their families. So you still have that handshake relationship with Hasbro, right? I mean, great relationship. And, you know, the games business is another proof point of, you know how that is? Yeah, I want

Michael Hughes 20:34
to make sure that we talk about that, because I like that as when you’re talking about the lifetime share of a customer, or however you describe it. You know, we can take a look at, let’s say, The Game of Life, which, by the way, I love one of our earlier guests, Richard Eisenberg, who’s just a shout out for the annual symposium that happened this year through our Ruth Ross Parker center. And Rich spoke again, but he used to point out that, hey, notice how the game of life ends at retirement. Right, right, right, yeah. But through that relate now you’re starting to see a lot of these classic games coming back under your stewardship and redesigning that gaming experience for the older audience, nostalgia for intergenerational gameplay. And that’s a really neat way of kind of, you know, marrying those two worlds of younger and older together, maybe continuing that value for Hasbro in these new markets. I mean, was that kind of calculus that you thought about?

Ted Fisher 21:25
Yeah, and I’d love to take credit. So we had come out with a couple of our own games that are card based, games based on reminiscence therapy, and we just sort of launched them in 2022 and Hasbro approached us and said, Hey, listen, we’re seeing this huge uptick in the use of our traditional, iconic board games by older adults, but we’re getting some feedback. They’re not as easy to play, they’re not quite as, you know, as fun as they could be, you know, we and this was the expert team, came and said, Listen, we think there’s a big opportunity to reimagine these for older adults, and we think you should do it. It took us, you know, four seconds to say, yes, we agree. And so literally, so that that meeting led to, all right, how do we, you know, work for a deal here, which we did, and then, you know, a year later, we launched in August of 20 so just about a year ago now, we launched our first three reimagined Hasbro games. So scramble Bingo is one game of life, generations is another so Game of Life, which we did modify a bit, and then Trivial Pursuit generations, which has been an incredible Trivial Pursuit game, is a lot of fun, and it’s a really great way to kind of, because, you know,

Michael Hughes 22:31
the trivial you’ve got the questions for the younger folks, get questions for older folks, and then they can kind of share their, you know, like, like music and stuff like that. You know, that’s I thought that was really cool well, and honestly, it’s

Ted Fisher 22:42
feedback from older adults. So when we went into older adults, and we said, So what makes this not as much fun anymore for you? And they said, there’s no questions for us. It’s all pop culture. And, you know, I used to be able to play that, but now, you know, I don’t know that stuff, this stuff that’s had so, so our version on every card is a question for the greatest generation, Boomer, Gen X, millennial and Gen Z. And so there’s no subject matter expert that’s going to roll the, you know, run the table where, if you could play as whatever generation you want, I actually am better at the greatest generation. I have a boomer, even though I have a boomer. And so

Michael Hughes 23:13
I know every Depeche Mode song out there, man. So I’ll kill it on the Gen X stuff, right?

Ted Fisher 23:17
I’m an old soul and so, but you know, if, like, there’s a fitness question that the answer to the greatest generation is Jack LaLanne, and for the millennial, I think it’s typo, and for the Gen X, it’s Zumba or so, you know, so, so. But the question, Joel, you know, as you’re playing intergenerationally, everybody can play and have fun, and that’s a little bit of what’s missing, and that’s why that’s been our number one show, and that one’s really done quite well, and it is super fun. But, like Scrabble Bingo is great, we created a three in one game. The scrabble pass game is sort of a card based game that has all the benefits of Scrabble, but you play it in like 15 minutes. Because one of the things we heard from older adults and scrabble takes a little bit too long. And we did some modification of, you know, things like font sizes on cards and size with tiles and easy to pick up and those kinds of things but tactile things were obvious. But for us, it’s more about what’s fun. Is this fun to play like are you? Tell us what would make this better? And we’re coming out our newest games, coming out in October, November, October. It’s coming out, and it is, it’s awesome.

Michael Hughes 24:18
Don’t spill any secrets, but

Ted Fisher 24:22
kill me because it’s embargoed, but I will tell you this. So so we had, when we were designing the game, we we got two different groups of folks one afternoon to come in and play, and so one before or six or eight people that did not know each other, and we that answered questionnaire, and ended up we getting selected, and then we had couples that knew each other come in and play, because that’s a very common sort of you play games with your friends, and we want to see, you know, what’s the difference between these ever and the group that knew each other playing this game? I honestly was just watching and laughing harder than I ever laughed. I laughed at the husband and wife. Flow cards at each other, you know, not yet. Well, don’t

Michael Hughes 25:02
again your marketing team, and we don’t want to

Ted Fisher 25:05
nothing, but it was so much fun, and it really was, and so you just get that the idea is, you know, at the core of what we do right now, purpose, stated purpose, I don’t talk about mission and vision as much as I do purpose. Our purpose is to reimagine how we positively live and age together by unleashing the power of play. And what we’ve seen is that, on its most basic level, when people are playing, they’re happy, and when they’re happy, they feel better. It’s just that simple, right? We don’t overcomplicate, none of us are doctors. We don’t know, you know, I’m not prescribing anything, but you know, we have this initiative that we have to reach out and play, where we’re going all over the country and doing these game events. It’s palpable, like you go to these things and you don’t have fun. It’s just impossible, like it’s just the energy’s great. People are interacting. I’ve told the story before, but one of the unexpected things at the end, you know, one of the events that I went to, is we have this matching card game, and most of the people that came into this senior center came in on some type of walking, you know, eating a mobility device. By halfway through the game. They without even knowing it. All of them were standing up around the table because they didn’t want to be the one that couldn’t reach over and match the card. So you look at this table of people that literally came in on, you know, mobility devices of some sort, wheelchairs. And none of them are usually and they’re all standing up around the table because they want to. And I’m like, What an incredible added benefit. We didn’t think of anything like that. But if you had said, Everybody stand up now, we’re going to get a little exercise, half the group would have been like, Yeah, but to be part of the action and to play and to have fun, they’re up and at it.

Michael Hughes 26:43
That’s what I wanted to close out on though Ted, because, you know, I mean, I think that, you know, what I’m noticing here is you just have this spidey sense for something that’s gonna work, and you’re sort of seeing immediately when I think about what you’ve just described, I said, Man, you know, you’ve got a whole world of rehab therapy out there. You’ve got occupational, physical speech therapy, all of these different applications, adherence programs, you know, ways to get people to engage in the first place. What are you most if you’re thinking about growth, I don’t want to, I don’t want any future. I don’t want any future products. I don’t want anything. But what are you curious about in terms of market opportunities, as we look as this age wave is happening, and as we kind of look towards the future? Yeah,

Ted Fisher 27:20
so two levels of that. So the first level is, you know, we look at, we constantly look at, you know, the platform that we’ve built that’s, you know, gotten pretty widely accepted, and how do we enhance and improve that, right? So to me, you know, AI, connectivity, all those things. They’re all great, esoteric things out here, but I’m only interested in them if they can improve the experience for our end user, right? So I think there’s an opportunity there. But I’m not going to tell you that I’m doing an AI pet for the sake of saying AI for my agents of innovation, we’re already AI to

Michael Hughes 27:54
worry about. But you used that one before. Thank you for using Yeah,

Ted Fisher 27:57
once or twice I’ve used that one, but no. But the reality is, like, I know it’s the rage. I know everybody wants to say they got an AI product, and maybe I do. And we just went through the AARP H tech collaborative accelerator, and that was part of the exploration. What does version 2.0 of the pet look like? So if I think forward, what I hope is that on that platform, we’re enhancing the user experience, if there’s the possibility of benefiting other, you know, stakeholders, by, you know, whatever it might be, some passive, you know, data or other things. But I never want to do anything that’s going to interfere with the end user experience with no product, because that’s the magic that I talked about earlier. And if we can’t enhance that, it’s not happening. So that’s one thing too. You know, our idea for reaching out and playing. Reach Out and Play is not a money maker for us at all, like there’s no revenue stream associated with it. It’s a movement. And for us, it’s something we thought about way before covid. We actually spent a year and a half designing it pre covid, and we’re going to launch it in March of 2020. Swear to God, not a true story, and I didn’t think somebody called Reach Out and Play was going to be a very good idea at the beginning of covid. So we shot, we put it on the shelf, and then with the advent of the Hasbro relationship with the games, it sort of was a great opportunity to take it off the shelf and rethink it a little bit. But we had done pilots already in Rhode Island, bringing older adults and, you know, school age children together playing , so the idea was, we’ve got to find ways to bring people together to engage and play. And the results were incredible. Like, you know, we had done, I think we had done 15 events in Rhode Island as part of the pilot, pre, pre covid And you know, the kids had amazing experience, the older adults had amazing experience. And we were really tracking, like, how can we make this better? How can we do it? So for us, if I look out in the future, to me, if this movement takes hold and we can take place, I think play has just such incredible powers that people don’t take advantage. Of like, just if you had ever told me 10 years ago that in a memory care, you know, sort of community where we had agitated older adults who were difficult in transition, and instead of giving us psychotropic medication, you gave them a pet, and it made them happy and joyful and they went without issue, I would have been like, Yeah, not so sure, but I’ve seen it now many times, right? And so, you know, I would love to think I was that smart, but I’m not. And, but we’re pretty good at following, you know, sort of the insights and just, you know, if that simplicity of something, when you think about it, with all the side effects of, you know, medications and all those kind of things, if it work for everybody, but if it works for some, you know, significant percentage of the population, that’s fantastic. So my goal is more fun, joy and play to have you know, I always say every day I start an interview, how we amplify impact. That’s the mantra here. That’s what we live to amplify impact.

Michael Hughes 30:54
Ted Fisher, the man with the most fun job in America, thank you for being on this podcast, but you’re actually not off the hook yet, my friend, and I’m sorry, you know, we always ask our guests three questions about their own experience with aging. And may I ask this of you? Sir, absolutely, of course, before we do, where can people find you? Yeah,

Ted Fisher 31:17
so joyforal.com, J, o, y, f, O, R, A, L, l.com, is our site. You can see videos and testimonials and products there. We’re available on places like Amazon and other retailers as well. So those are the easiest places to find our stuff.

Michael Hughes 31:34
Very cool, very cool. And again, we’ve just had a terrific experience with an idiomatic church, Amazon or thanks again. So question number one, Ted, when you think about how you have aged, what do you think has changed about you or grown with you that you really like about yourself? Yes, I

Ted Fisher 31:48
I think, you know, it’s a great question. I watched your podcast, so I knew this was coming. So thank you for

Michael Hughes 31:53
Thank you and my mom for watching the podcast. But personally,

Ted Fisher 31:56
I get it. You know, I did a TEDx talk, and I think it’s now gotten 22,000 views. I’m like, Mom, how have you had that much? And by the way, the vanilla maybe 10,000 may not be 20 or even though so anyway, show a lot of reviews, and I’m sure that 90,000 but I think, you know, the thing that that I find the most today, it’s interesting. Now, leading this company is the most fun thing I’ve ever done. It is just a joyful way, you can do some good. You got a big business opportunity. Like, it’s so cool. So I think it’s perspective. It’s really the thing that I look at the most. Like, the way I handled things 2030, years ago and the way I handle things today are so different. And it’s, you know, it’s not like I’m old. I have all this wisdom, but they do have some, and I have some, you know, some scars and, you know, and some wounds and things that you know, have helped shape how I handle, you know, because, because, as you know, run a business like it. It seems like I have the most fun job in America, but you know, this time of year, we’re building inventory for big fourth quarter of Cash Flows Lita, like, it’s got all the elements of the pain of the neck, that other plate you know, that other companies have, but in dealing with those type of issues, I think, you know, the perspective that I have and learning from those who who have sort of come before me, in terms of, you know that that progression, I think, is great, and I think you know that if I one of the things that I like about where I’ve never not thought about exercising, I’ve never thought that I don’t think about myself as getting older. I mean, you know, I just, I’m continuing to be who I want to be, and all the things that I did 20 years ago, doing at a better degree now than I was then. Yeah, but that

Michael Hughes 33:47
leads into the second question, though, what has surprised you the most about you as you’ve aged?

Ted Fisher 33:54
Yes, I think it’s my continued passion. You know that again, you know it. I used to start almost every talk that I did, I’d ask people for a show of hands, who’s decided at what age you want to stop playing. Somebody just raise your hand if you’ve got a number, I’m not raising my hand. So, yeah, no, it is. There’s a zero. It’s so far that 100 times with zero, right? Because I think I’m like, I’m a grandfather, right? So I just ran a Boston marathon with my son two months ago. Ran into whatever April, whatever it was, which is my 20th marathon, my 11th Boston Marathon. Like I don’t I think about just keep moving forward and doing what you had in but if you’d asked me 30 years ago, would a grandfather look like you know, my personal stigma would have been older, you know, not able to do back nine whenever you’re using now whatever you want to say. And what surprised me the most is, you know, I’m not slowing down at all. I get more passionate about this stuff every day. I get more excited to do it. And so you know that that has. Surprise me. And that’s

Michael Hughes 35:00
the thing you know, in our work, you know, we do a lot of, you know, human centered design workshops with residents 80s, 90s, hundreds. You know, the same energy, creative energy as I see with people in their 20s, 30s, 40s, and that’s just really inspiring for me. And aging, we got a creative energy, that zeal and all that doesn’t seem to die within us, which is a real hopeful story. So getting to that, though, question three, is there someone that you’ve met, or someone that’s been in your life that has set a good example for you in aging, like someone that’s inspired you to age with abundance?

Ted Fisher 35:32
I don’t know if there’s one person, but I think if I had to pick what, it’s family, right? So I was really fortunate to be very close with all my grandparents, and they were family. First people like that were their life. It was all about family. And they, you know, they came from really different sides. Both my grandparents came from different sides of the universe. And one was an entrepreneur and grew a huge business. Another guy worked, you know, actually, so interesting story. I worked. So my first job was in a family textile business that my grandfather, my mother’s father started. Fast forward, I went to Hasbro, and my father’s father was a supervisor of Hasbro for 21 years. So I spoke to Rhode Island, your Rhode Island, family Rhode Island. But think about it, I worked at both of the places that my grandfathers were. Like, how many people can say they work, you know, with both their grandfathers were, yeah, really rare. So anyway, but in my life, when I look at what’s important to me, and the first pillar and tenant that we have here is family first. So I have people of varying sorts of, you know, places in their lives raising young kids, to people like me, whose kids are grown and out of the house, and it’s a family first culture, it’s a family so we’re flexible work schedules, we do those things. It ‘s been instilled in me by watching the family that came before me. Value family above all else. And, you know, it’s what keeps me grounded. You know, I’m going from here down to my parents’ summer house, where this weekend, there will be 30 of us, you know, convened for four generations. To me, that’s the inspiration. Is, can we keep that focus on connection and community moving forward, and I’ve just been so blessed to have unbelievable examples of my parents, my grandparents and those around me, so I think we should all strive for that as we age. Yeah, and today,

Michael Hughes 37:30
we’re blessed to have you on the show, busy guy, grateful for you giving this time to us, sharing us your story. So much inspiration, and it was just such a fun conversation. Many thanks to you. Many. Thanks to the Ruth Frost Parker Center, which is part of United Church homes, which is the sponsor of this podcast series. Find out more about the Ruth FOSS Parker center@www.unitedchurchhomes.org backslash Parker, hyphen center. And most of all, thank you to our listeners for listening to this episode of The Art of aging, part of the abundant aging podcast series for United Church homes. And we want to hear from you what’s changed about you as you’ve aged, that you love, what has surprised you the most you know. How have you integrated play into your life? I mean, what does play mean to you? Share with us and share with Ted’s team and Ted once more. Where can people find you?

Ted Fisher 38:19
So first of all, thank you so much for having me. I’m blessed to be on this podcast, but also call you a friend. So thank you. And then joyforal.com and you can find all of our products on Amazon and other retailers as

Michael Hughes 38:31
well. Terrific. Thanks for listening. We’ll see you next time!