The Rise of the Blue Zone Man

What happens when you combine the wisdom of the world’s healthiest communities with a vision to reinvent how we age? 

In this episode, Dr. Mike Strouse and co-host Ivo Ivanov take listeners from stories of synchronicity and small-town magic to a bold plan for creating America’s first “Blue Zone” without walls. Learn how logistics, technology, and purpose-driven living could help people age in place, stay connected, and live longer, healthier, more meaningful lives.

Episode Links: 

• The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley
• Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle

Transcript

Ivo Ivanov (00:00:09):

Hello and welcome to the Quest for the Good Life with Dr. Mike Strouse. This podcast Quest is a production of Good Life University. Our mission is to take the listener on a proverbial quest in search of a better life. We are here again with Dr. Mike Strouse, your host and your co-host with the Co-most, Sound Engineering, this podcast and fun engineering Ivo Ivanov. And we were talking a little bit here beforehand about paranormal stuff, and it got me thinking about one of my favorite topics, synchronicity, because it happened to me on the way here today. Synchronicity is actually a term created by Carl Jung, an old friend of ours, one of the colossal figures in psychotherapy and in behaviorism. But he had an inclination towards the paranormal, and that was actually at the core of his conflict with Sigmund Freud. And it all started when he went to the library one day in Zurich and he wanted to check out a book and they didn't have it.

(00:01:21):

Somebody had already checked out the book from the library. So he exited the library and started walking. He was frustrated walking around and walked on this street and that street went into a park and sat on a bench and looked down on the bench. Next to him was the book that he was looking for. And he said, well, this is a coincidence, but it's a little bit too much of a coincidence and it's way too meaningful to be coincidental. So he created a new term synchronicity, and he believed that there is some kind of outside force that synchronizes events every once in a while. And we've, all of us had a moment or that, or tool like this. And I had one on the way here today as I was driving towards our headquarters here, and I was playing in my head a song by Led Zeppelin. It's called Black Dog. It's from, I believe, led Zeppelin four. And then about 10 minutes later, I turned on the radio and that song was playing, and it struck me as highly, highly unusual in a moment of synchronicity. I wonder if you've had anything.

Mike Strouse (00:02:44):

Well, I got to tell you, Ivo, as soon as we have a show there it goes. Often we take a left turn and then I'm so sorry about that. Here we go. The thing is though, and I'm not even trying it to the purpose of this thing, but you talked about Carl, right? Well, I got married about 30 years ago in Eureka Springs, Arkansas.

Ivo Ivanov (00:03:12):

Love this town.

Mike Strouse (00:03:14):

Love it. Anyway, we had a great small wedding in a bed and breakfast, and we brought everybody down that we wanted to bring down. It was kind of a little destination thing. It was really cool community. And then after that, we were going to go on, went on honeymoon, but stayed there a couple days while we were just finishing a couple things up. It was just a great place. Well, they had this little downtown and I went in all these little bookstores. Well, it turns out, and anybody who knows me just knows I am just attracted to the unexplained. I have always been attracted to unexplained, and I have added a lot of things to the unexplained in my life. But in this bookstore was a section on, and it wasn't like I sought it out, but it was a section on wca.

Ivo Ivanov (00:04:06):

Yes.

Mike Strouse (00:04:07):

And what I found out later is that there are, Eureka Springs is a coven destination. It is where a lot of the sixties for one flower people kind of migrated and in covens sort of emerged and stuff. And so the woman who was explaining this to me, who I later found out was a high priestess. Right?

Ivo Ivanov (00:04:40):

Wow.

Mike Strouse (00:04:40):

Yeah. She didn't disclose that at the front end of the bookstore support she was giving. But I saw this section and I was just immensely interested in it because my favorite book, I don't think I ever told him I hear This is Miss of Avalon, which is sort of the fading of the old religions and the emergence of the new religions. But it's told in the narrative of the authority and legend from the women's point of view,

(00:05:16):

It was on the New York Times bestseller was I think for 40 weeks. It's one of the most read. Marian Zimmer Bradley was the author of that book. I've read it seven times just to put that. And I think it's like 1300 pages. So it's incredible. It's incredible. So it tells the story of legend, but it also talks about how you go, how we went from the old religions to the new religions in the midst of Avalon is that myth that cover the old religions. And anyway, that's why I was attracted to that stuff because the CCA really wasn't about, as some people think Satan worship, it was really about nature,

Ivo Ivanov (00:06:01):

Worship, connection with the earth. Yeah, connection with the earth.

Mike Strouse (00:06:04):

Well, I was looking at all those books and I'd say it was riddled with books by Carl. And I asked why the why on that? And she said, well, the archetypes that were in there were really about this mysticism. It was like what you were talking about, these unexplained ability to have this power to cause

Ivo Ivanov (00:06:30):

Things

Mike Strouse (00:06:32):

So well, so Carl was a witch, I guess, right?

Ivo Ivanov (00:06:36):

In a way. He was, yeah. Carl Jung was controversial in that manner in scientific circles, and Freud was all about the scientific methods, so they had a kind of falling out. But yeah, if you've been to Eureka Springs, you would not be surprised that they had books on Wika there. It's a counterculture kind of capital in the Midwest. And I'm surprised you didn't get married in the Crystal Chapel. I don't know if it existed back then. I

Mike Strouse (00:07:05):

Did not, but I will tell you a story that brings up full circle.

Ivo Ivanov (00:07:11):

Okay, perfect.

Mike Strouse (00:07:12):

You have to take that experience in Arkansas,

Ivo Ivanov (00:07:15):

Right? Yes, yes.

Mike Strouse (00:07:17):

It was pretty impactful. It was really cool to see that. There was a couple other things that happened down there we won't get into, but we had a good time and flash forward 10 years, I was in Georgetown, Georgetown in DC area, and I was writing because writing, I was actually writing something that we won't go into today. I write about technical things, but I've been for years writing what I believe will be a novel, and this is my more fun thing to do. And it's my retirement bucket list just to finish that. But it is, I've been always romanced about a author and legend, and this is about the authority and legend, but it's interlaced by dogs. So it is like dogs that are in your life that influence you to do some things. I'm not going to get into that. This is a little weird, but I was in there, I had fun. I was decided, well, I'm going to write on that. And I started writing. I got done, I started at four in the afternoon at a pub, kind of indoor outdoor pub in Georgetown. Fun place, had dinner, had dinner, and just had some wine and was just doing all of that, and it just was flowing.

(00:08:40):

So I did all of that, and then I finally packed it up at about 11 o'clock and started walking back to where I was staying. Well, it turns out that it was in a really good safe area that I was walking in, and all of a sudden I was followed by some people and I felt really, really sort of at risk and was looking for a place to duck in. But it was 11 o'clock,

Ivo Ivanov (00:09:11):

Right?

Mike Strouse (00:09:12):

And I was still a little ways from where I needed to go, and I didn't think I could get there. I think there was going to be a happening. Then I looked to the left and I saw this place. It was a place, you know how they have those little steps that go down almost like here in Kansas City, it looked like an entry to a speakeasy, but it was more of a old Georgetown building that had steps that go down right above. It was a sign that flashed that said Palm reading.

Ivo Ivanov (00:09:43):

Palm reading.

Mike Strouse (00:09:44):

Like the psychic readings, right?

Ivo Ivanov (00:09:46):

This like a movie. This is moving. Interesting.

Mike Strouse (00:09:49):

It was flashing like that, and it was clearly, it was

Ivo Ivanov (00:09:52):

Open.

Mike Strouse (00:09:53):

I thought, I don't have much choice. I'm going to go down there and I'm going to call the cabs through. I walked down those steps, walked in there, and it was that lady.

Ivo Ivanov (00:10:07):

Wow, come on. Really?

Mike Strouse (00:10:09):

It's fact.

Ivo Ivanov (00:10:11):

That is,

Mike Strouse (00:10:12):

It was the lady that I met right after I got married.

Ivo Ivanov (00:10:16):

Come on

Mike Strouse (00:10:17):

In Eureka Springs.

Ivo Ivanov (00:10:19):

There's your synchronicity. That is,

Mike Strouse (00:10:21):

Is that exactly what you were talking

Ivo Ivanov (00:10:23):

About? Exactly.

Mike Strouse (00:10:24):

That's beyond coincidence.

Ivo Ivanov (00:10:25):

Right? Too meaningful to be a coincidence.

Mike Strouse (00:10:27):

So here we are, and we just took left turns, we took right turns. I have to take another turn before we get into the lesson of the day and it's like,

Ivo Ivanov (00:10:40):

Welcome to the Twilight Zone.

Mike Strouse (00:10:42):

Welcome to this thing. But one of these days we'll have a fun episode and I'll tell you exactly what that lady told me when I decided this was too big of a coincidence.

Ivo Ivanov (00:10:57):

Yes.

Mike Strouse (00:10:58):

Read my poems, give me a psychic reading. I want to know everything that you have to, you're going to

Ivo Ivanov (00:11:03):

Make us wait,

Mike Strouse (00:11:04):

You're going to mute. You got to tell us. No, if I talk about that, we don't have anything else to talk about because it went on for an hour.

Ivo Ivanov (00:11:13):

Oh, okay. We going to have a special episode.

Mike Strouse (00:11:16):

But it did set the tone for I would tell you probably the next 20 or 30 years.

Ivo Ivanov (00:11:24):

Unbelievable. Wow. I want to

Mike Strouse (00:11:26):

Know, is that by accident? I mean at the end of the day you got to say, remember that poem I talked about Destiny? Yes. Perhaps you were supposed to see this. That's the stuff that happens in my life. You just keep circling back and the people that come into my life, Ivo you and Megan who tries to keep me on some stupid straight path and whatever it is, it didn't matter. But these people come into my life and keep me from messing up or they help me mess up or whatever it is, but they're like supposed to be there or this is supposed to happen. I'm a behavioral analyst, so I'm supposed to be extremely objective, and for the most part I am. But you know what? They're just stuff you can't explain. They're just stuff you can't explain. But I'm going to explain it. The future episode, I'm going to get to it, but not today. But I am going to take one more left turn before we start going down that stupid straight and narrow road that our producer wants us to do. But what I'm wanting to ask you about is you just got back from a visit abroad and Ivo, I don't know how much of viewers know this, but everybody else knows this, that when you visit, where you go that you're just a flat out rockstar. I mean, you live two lives. You live a life here in the United States, in our community here, and all of the friends know you here like myself in a certain way, but then you get on a plane and you go across the pond and you're an entirely, I don't know if you're a different person, you're not a different person, but you might as well be because it's a completely different life.

Ivo Ivanov (00:13:23):

Yeah.

Mike Strouse (00:13:24):

Tell me a little bit about that Trip Rockstar.

Ivo Ivanov (00:13:28):

I don't know about Rockstar, but people do read in Bulgaria, it's a very, very educated country with a lot of readers, and this really, I don't know about Rockstar, but

Mike Strouse (00:13:43):

You do play with a band there.

Ivo Ivanov (00:13:45):

Yeah, I do that too. Yeah. Yeah. I do a lot of things on an average level, but there's one thing that I know I can do well, and that's right, and I've discovered this a long time ago when I was a teenager, and really this, now what's happening in my homeland is a product, a function of 40 years of writing, four decades of writing and little by little, little writing stories that are based on real events and real people, but infused with my own experiences in my own life and my own philosophy. They turn into something else. And those stories, I would write them here in the United States, I'll send them to a newspaper in Bulgaria and they would publish them once a week and it gained readership, this style. Ultimately it became a thing and people, and

Mike Strouse (00:14:52):

Well, that was amplified eventually you wrote a bestselling book.

Ivo Ivanov (00:14:57):

Yes.

Mike Strouse (00:14:57):

But it started in a different way.

Ivo Ivanov (00:15:00):

Yeah, it started decades ago and eventually the first book, when it was published 2014, it became a bestseller in a very shocking way for me. I was here and that winter the book was published and people were buying five 10 books at a time. They would go

Mike Strouse (00:15:24):

Tell people the name of it.

Ivo Ivanov (00:15:25):

It's called The Happiness Curve, and it's only in Bulgarian

Mike Strouse (00:15:29):

And in a way that dovetails with the good life, but your happiness curve is really about really interesting people. And

Ivo Ivanov (00:15:40):

Yeah, I told some of the stories here about Rulon Gardner and Kyle Maynard and the Tarot, Mara Indians and I would travel and find these stories that were relevant to every human being. Every thinking human being is concerned with existential themes like the meaning of life, the meaning of death, the meaning of friendship, sacrifice, those things overcoming obstacles, probably connective tissue between all my stories is this overcoming obstacles and the dichotomy that lives within every human being, the yin and yang, the good wolf and the bad wolf. So people I

Mike Strouse (00:16:24):

Talk to both every day.

Ivo Ivanov (00:16:26):

Absolutely.

Mike Strouse (00:16:27):

You have ongoing conversation. It's ongoing. And sadly, they talk right in the middle of sentences for me. So yeah,

Ivo Ivanov (00:16:35):

This morning the bad wolf in you was winning a little bit. We are not going to go into it, it really was. But yeah, I discovered that people relate to these stories because they need them. They need a helping hand every once in a while and support in the idea that they can overcome any obstacle. We talked about Rulon Gardner or Kyle Maynard who was born without legs and arms and became a winning championship wrestler and all that stuff. And people read these stories and they understand

Mike Strouse (00:17:11):

That they were inspired,

Ivo Ivanov (00:17:13):

Inspired, completely empowered as well. But that combined with my media appearances became something that grew out of control, I think because when people read your books, they read your voice, they know your voice and they are inspired and they love your books and your stories and search for new ones, but they don't know your face. They don't know who you are. They just know your voice. And for years and years, I felt like that's the way it's supposed to be. And that's better actually. But

Mike Strouse (00:17:53):

You can have some degree of privacy, but still.

Ivo Ivanov (00:17:56):

Yeah. And the old saying that you shouldn't know too much about the people you like, the artists you like,

Mike Strouse (00:18:07):

It'll disappoint you most

Ivo Ivanov (00:18:08):

Of the time. It'll disappoint you most of the time. But a lot of my friends from childhood are in media, in television, radio, all kinds of shows, podcasts. And when I go to Bulgaria once a year, I am a little bit more exotic to them because I'm not there and they want me to be a guest on their shows. And I am basically this time where I go in Bulgaria, I'm running from one studio to another, to another to another because they're my friends and I love them and I can't refuse.

Mike Strouse (00:18:43):

And you really go a couple months a year to do that, and you're experiencing sort of the cumulative effect of that combined with the fact that

Ivo Ivanov (00:18:57):

The writing

Mike Strouse (00:18:57):

Have been famous,

Ivo Ivanov (00:19:00):

But you're

Mike Strouse (00:19:00):

Writing.

Ivo Ivanov (00:19:01):

Yeah, and so I have so many encounters with random people on the streets because now they know my face because I'm on television all the time there and they know my face and they would approach me and give me a hug and say, we are so thankful for your stories. And they helped me in a very tough moment this year. I was at a jazz festival with my wife. My wife Jamie came with me this time to Bulgaria and she experienced it firsthand for the first time in 25 years she's been to Bulgaria. And it was really wonderful for her to see all this. I am now used to it, but we were at the jazz festival. We were stopped by this lady mid thirties, and she came to me and said, hello, and just gave me a hug. And then she said, you know, saved my marriage and maybe my life because we've read the Happiness Curve at a very tough moment in my relationship with my husband, and it helped us realize that our problems in a relationship are nothing compared to the problems that people can overcome. And it made us stronger and we read it together and shared stories together, cried and laughed together. And then she said, do you see that man over there? And me and Jamie looked at a guy and she said, now look. And she waved at him and he moved and there was a 4-year-old girl behind him and she said, well, this is my husband and this is the result of your book is this kid because you saved our marriage and we had this beautiful child and my wife, wife was steering up.

Mike Strouse (00:20:49):

That's cool. Everybody wants to be inspired, but I think also people want to inspire others as well. You talked about the ying and the yang. I think they want to have purpose and not everybody wants to be a hermit or wants to be anonymous, and being anonymous and living kind of in a vacuum has some negative connotation problems to it. What I think about every time you come back is just like this dichotomy that you live and how cool that is, but obviously you can almost take it over the edge. But actually I was thinking myself, I think I want to be famous. Ivo,

Ivo Ivanov (00:21:41):

You are famous.

Mike Strouse (00:21:42):

I want to be famous. You

Ivo Ivanov (00:21:45):

Won't be stopped by random people

Mike Strouse (00:21:48):

If you give me some lessons and being a rock star, I want to experience that

Ivo Ivanov (00:21:57):

Kind of what kind of fame? I mean, you are famous scientifically, I want to be a professor. You I'll never be not enough. Dr. Strouse, what kind of fame? You want to be an entertainer?

Mike Strouse (00:22:12):

Yeah, yeah. That's who I want. I've decided I want to be a blue man. I mean, if Blue Man's not made for podcasts, I know it two problems. It be really kind of boring to bring the Blue Men on to a podcast. Probably

Ivo Ivanov (00:22:29):

There's three problems. I see three problems immediately. First of all, you have a lot of hair, you have a full head of hair and the blue men are bold and you are not blue and you talk and the blue man, and that would be a worst podcast ever if you are a blue man because it's blue man

Mike Strouse (00:22:47):

Silent. I recognize there's problems associated with it, but maybe we can just morph it a bit. I mean, the truth of the matter is I want to be a blue man because I want to be known for creating blue

Ivo Ivanov (00:23:02):

Zones. Yes, the five Blue Zones, the famous five Blue Zones of Longevity.

Mike Strouse (00:23:09):

I want to make a blue zone. We've talked about that in other episode. I'm totally driven to make a blue zone, so I thought, well, I should be a blue man, right?

Ivo Ivanov (00:23:23):

Blue zone man. Yes,

Mike Strouse (00:23:24):

I'll be a blue zone man, one that talks, maybe one that talks and has hair, but I still think that that's the angle I want to take.

Ivo Ivanov (00:23:37):

I like it,

Mike Strouse (00:23:37):

But I can't drum, I can't do anything musically and I can't make those eyes. They do.

Ivo Ivanov (00:23:44):

Can we remind the listeners about the Blue Zones? The five Blue Zones?

Mike Strouse (00:23:48):

Yeah.

Ivo Ivanov (00:23:49):

So there are five Blue Zones identified around the world. The island of Okinawa is one of them, if I'm not mistaken. Luma Point, I think in California is one and Sardinia is one, but those are five zones that have the longest living and healthiest individuals and happiest individuals.

Mike Strouse (00:24:13):

And there's the because, right? I mean they have that long

Ivo Ivanov (00:24:16):

Life.

Mike Strouse (00:24:19):

Maybe there's a little bit of genetics involved, but that's not really what creates a blue zone. It's like something about how they live creates that blue zone, right?

Ivo Ivanov (00:24:35):

Yeah. And we talked about it in episodes two and seven listeners, if you want more details about what the Blue zones are, but what is it about their style of living? It was the community. Was it the community, the food, of course, the engagement.

Mike Strouse (00:24:52):

Well, let's add Blue Zone. Before we get into the details of this, let's add the concept of a blue zone to the fact that you know that I just totally hero of

Ivo Ivanov (00:25:04):

Worship.

Mike Strouse (00:25:06):

Indiana Jones, right?

Ivo Ivanov (00:25:07):

Yes.

Mike Strouse (00:25:08):

He's the kind of guy that go after the Fountain of Youth. You go after that and he'd find that, and that's unexplained method of how you could live longer. That's kind of the elixir

Ivo Ivanov (00:25:23):

That

Mike Strouse (00:25:23):

Lets you live a long life. And that's sort of people after the Fountain youth because it was a quick fix. I don't think the Blue zones are a quick fix. I think the Blue Zones are a way about living. It's way about being with each other. It's that connective tissue with each

Ivo Ivanov (00:25:44):

Other,

Mike Strouse (00:25:45):

How you help each other, your purpose, how you live your life, how you eat, how you think it is. All those things that create an environment where you're going to live a good life, but a long good life, right? Yeah. We've had the discussion of Blue Zone, but I'm super excited to say we're creating a community, but it's not creating a community where we are a developer and developing something where many people move in. Our task is to pick out a community where people already are older people already are, and I'm not talking about a 55 plus community or something like that. I'm talking about if you geolocate existing seniors, they age in some high density area, some place where they are in proportion potentially to the other population. Could you put a circle around that community and create a ecosystem and a way about living and a way about supporting people and all the other ingredients that you can think of that gives them the elixir of life, gives them that Fountain of Youth, gives them the purpose and the ability to live longer, right where they are. And the old fashioned way of talking about this, people want to age in place, right?

Ivo Ivanov (00:27:25):

Yeah,

Mike Strouse (00:27:26):

That's fine. They want to age in place, but I believe to do that, you got to go way upstream and stop thinking about aging a place. Once you've already done it, you got to go upstream and try and get people earlier and engage in these kinds of practices that we think are related to long life and Blue zones. And it is multifaceted. It's like social things. It's physical things. It is how you interact with people, what your purpose is. It's all of those kinds of things. Can you create that community in a way that makes people live longer and be happier?

Ivo Ivanov (00:28:15):

Yeah, there's many variables and that circle is expanding as the United States and Germany I believe are the two fastest aging populations in the world. So it shouldn't be very hard to geo-locate an aging population and find where there's high density in this population.

Mike Strouse (00:28:38):

Well, we did that Ivo, and you probably know that we have software, fundamentally it's software that leverages us census data and all kinds of characteristics and factors and looks at nine digit zip codes. Nine digit zip codes are a smaller footprint than typical I think five digit zip codes to add another four digits in. That kind of pulls that footprint smaller. And then we start analyzing in there who's there and what the characteristics of them. By doing that, we went into urban areas here. We wanted to be close to home. So it's in the international place of employment here is in Lenexa, Kansas, and it's a pretty high density area. It's not by any stretch of rural area. It's a large city. But we started looking at these zip codes and analyzing them, and we found small blocks of people that met some of the characteristics that we're looking at. And we even looked at communities that had some of the cool things that I thought would be part of elements of a blue zone. It's like parks and churches and all the amenities that you would expect to see, and Norman Rockwell like neighborhoods, but they weren't created. They were more organic.

(00:30:23):

So what we found was there's probably six or 10 of these little areas and they kind of throw out themselves into clusters. And you're looking at the aging population, for example, normal aging data would be about 20%. If you look at people over 65, 20, 20 2% like that, I was finding places that would be between 20 and 35% in that category. And you start looking at other factors related to it and all of a sudden you've kind of identified like, wow, that has some

Ivo Ivanov (00:30:59):

Makings

Mike Strouse (00:31:03):

Of something that we could do something with.

Ivo Ivanov (00:31:05):

We can make them blue.

Mike Strouse (00:31:06):

We can, I mean, they may be like, they're probably going to start off pink, but we can make them charts and light blue and

Ivo Ivanov (00:31:18):

At

Mike Strouse (00:31:19):

The end of the day we're going to make 'em blue.

Ivo Ivanov (00:31:23):

You like Claude Monet,

Mike Strouse (00:31:25):

You

Ivo Ivanov (00:31:25):

Just painting,

Mike Strouse (00:31:28):

And I know I've talked to you about this, but we now have a million dollars of a grant more than that really to focus all of our time and attention on this project.

Ivo Ivanov (00:31:47):

So how do we use the

Mike Strouse (00:31:49):

Scientific thing is our next quest

Ivo Ivanov (00:31:54):

With

Mike Strouse (00:31:55):

Indiana and the gang.

Ivo Ivanov (00:31:58):

How

Mike Strouse (00:31:58):

Do we create what we've discovered and how do we make that? And I'm so excited about evil. I just was on the phone with somebody in Arkansas and they wanted me to talk with them because they bought this big patch of land and they were going to create what they called an intentional community on it, and that is basically this empty patch of grand and they wanted to build a whole bunch of housing on it for a special population. And anybody knows me knows I'm not my thing. That's how institutions were created and an intentional population served, I mean outside of 55 plus communities, but the truth is nobody really wants to live in that either. Do you know what the average age movement in a 55 plus community is? 77. So obviously people don't want to move into it or they've done it before they do it because they made special amenities there. But the point I'm making is people have spent their life creating these intentional communities and you can put a building around it and call it assisted living. They can't get past the fact that if they want to organize care

(00:33:22):

And for a group of people who have needs, they're going to build walls around it and make it into a facility. That's how we've always done it. We've always just said, if I'm going to organize care and deliver it in a organized fashion, I must have a building first. And they create assisted living communities. They create institutions, they create clustered type facilities so they could organize the care and have a small cohort of caregivers support a greater number of people because why? Well, it's cost effective and also it by having smaller groups support larger group, they're trying to deal with the fact that they know that most people's needs are intermittent and they happen in unpredictable times and they don't need a caregiver for every individual

Ivo Ivanov (00:34:24):

Because

Mike Strouse (00:34:24):

Statistically, at any moment in time only, let's say 25% of 10% of them have a need, and if only 10 or 25%, you don't want a hundred people that you're supporting and a hundred caregivers to support them waiting for a need that only happens once every three hours. So what they do is they say, well, since the need happened once every three hours or very intermittently, or it could be at any time of day, but we don't know when, but on the whole larger the number of people that you serve, the larger the number of people can cram into a building, you can have a cohort of caregivers support them cost efficiently, and you can organize that care to do that. And that's just how people think about this. But in truth, what if you can go out there in the community and put a circle around a community and organize that care? Hold that thought for a second because what I found always interesting is when you have a facility, people can think about how you deliver care cost effectively. They think about, I call it shared care, right? Shared care. You have a core group of staff and you share that staff around needs, and you have the core group designed to be big enough to support what you know to be the needs at that moment. But those needs are not everybody having a need.

Mike Strouse (00:36:01):

You

Mike Strouse (00:36:01):

Know what some percentage of it and you just modulate the core consistent with the need, right?

Ivo Ivanov (00:36:07):

Yes,

Mike Strouse (00:36:08):

You can figure that out when you put a building and walls around, everybody can think rationally, but when those people are out in the community, the only way they can think is one person at a time.

Mike Strouse (00:36:21):

They

Mike Strouse (00:36:21):

Can't think any other way. If Uber delivered rides like we deliver in-home care in the community,

Mike Strouse (00:36:28):

We

Mike Strouse (00:36:29):

Would have a driver hired for everybody who had a need to have a ride and they would just be sitting there waiting for that person to call them to get a ride. We wouldn't share a ride. Well, Uber has organized the need around a community, right? Amazon has organized things around the community of people who need packages delivered freaking mail has done it. I mean, everybody's figured this out except for our industry in delivering care. They treat every individual in the community as if they're on an island and nobody else is there. When we know from our software that 15 minute deployment, Ivo 15 minute deployment, this is what we figured out. We looked at the need in a 15 minute normal deployment from any point in this circle and in a 15 minute deployment, you probably have 500 to a thousand people.

Ivo Ivanov (00:37:44):

Wow.

Mike Strouse (00:37:44):

Who need care.

Ivo Ivanov (00:37:46):

Yeah.

Mike Strouse (00:37:47):

Think about that.

Ivo Ivanov (00:37:48):

Yeah.

Mike Strouse (00:37:50):

You have 500 to a thousand people in certain well-selected neighborhoods. All I'm saying is what is the difference between a facility in that circle? There is no difference except for one thing

(00:38:07):

In a facility. You somehow know when the need is occurring because it's all connected, has connective tissue, they've got communication strategy, they got a way to check in on people. They got all kinds of stuff to do that, and in the neighborhood, they don't have any way to connect it. There's no walls there. There's an anonymity of those people living there, and they don't know that they have a neighbor who also has a need or they have another neighbor who has, they don't know that there's a nurse that lives five doors down. They don't know that there's a maintenance guy that lives within reach. They don't know that there's all these resources there because nobody has identified them and nobody has put 'em together in some thoughtful way so that we've created somewhat of a facility without walls, but we would never call it a facility. We're going to call it a blue zone.

Ivo Ivanov (00:39:01):

So what you've done to become the blue zone man, is you conceptually looked at the Blue Zones, the five existing blue zones around the world, and you kind of reverse engineer them. You realize that the components that exist there for people's wellbeing and health to be so good are community. Obviously food and activity and natural supports, young, middle-aged and all kind of live next to each other and support each other and provide natural support. The strength of a neighborhood, neighbors supporting each other occurs naturally in these blue zones. And there are no walls. There are no

Mike Strouse (00:39:45):

Walls. You're right. I do want to say though, the word natural has come up to mean not paid.

Ivo Ivanov (00:39:51):

Oh, yeah,

Mike Strouse (00:39:53):

That's true. And I don't mean that. I'm talking about organically existing resources are exactly in the same place where the need for those resources are, but they wouldn't know it because there's no way to connect the resources and the need.

Ivo Ivanov (00:40:14):

Would the support resources be living close by or what

Mike Strouse (00:40:22):

Do you Yeah, they would. Some of the stuff I think you would infuse

Ivo Ivanov (00:40:26):

Or

Mike Strouse (00:40:27):

I know you infuse, but I'm grown to believe that we're only infusing things because we haven't identified them. I mean, it is a marketing nightmare, and I love these marketing nightmares who drives our marketing team crazy, and I like doing that just continu continuously moves their cheese bed Wolff, they look at a with mouth agate and all kinds of stuff, but at the end they get it, and the thing is, it does change how you do stuff. It changes everything. Our goal is to farm that community and reap from that and identify all the resources, and I'm not talking about this three block area that we have selected for our first blue zone creation. Now we've created neighborhood networks, but we've actually infused people there in normal neighborhoods. There was a neighborhood that had 2000 rental units, and I infused people with intellectual disabilities living in one and two person apartments in a very inclusive way, but it was among people who were just typically developing people and the percentages of people living there who had intellectual disabilities were within keeping of the same population statewide. So the percentages were the same. We created that, right?

Ivo Ivanov (00:42:01):

Yeah.

Mike Strouse (00:42:02):

Well, I'm done with that. That's cool. But now with the knowledge that we have, it's like why would I want to create something that already existed, but they just don't know it yet? Now with seniors, you can go and identify these areas that they're already at. All the chess pieces are already there. They're just not organized and we are not engaged with each other. We've created sort of virtual walls around that and made that into an organized system of support. We created care as an amenity of just a great neighborhood.

Ivo Ivanov (00:42:44):

Yeah. I have a question. One of the variables that helps a blue zone be a blue zone is the sense of purpose that we started the conversation that way. How do we give those seniors extra purpose and meaning in their life, in their latter days of their life?

Mike Strouse (00:43:06):

Well, that's a good point, and I think the first thing you do, there's lots of things that you do, and I think we'll never run out things to work on.

Ivo Ivanov (00:43:15):

That's great.

Mike Strouse (00:43:15):

To be honest with you. I love that It's like a never ending story where you keep adding

Ivo Ivanov (00:43:20):

Things. Yes,

Mike Strouse (00:43:21):

Yes. You need support and you need care to live independently. That's important. But that doesn't mean that you don't have purpose to offer somebody else. I mean, the reality is you have a person with intellectual disabilities over here that's able bodied and you have a senior that lives two doors down and you got that woman with MS, and you got the veteran who has a physical disability now or something else. They all have needs, but they also should have purpose, and if they don't, that's as important as meeting the needs is giving them purpose, right?

Mike Strouse (00:44:02):

Absolutely. Yeah.

Mike Strouse (00:44:03):

I mean, I think the biggest problem in the care industry is we look at just what they actually need, not what they can give. We should create this sort of environment where people make deposits and withdrawals. They shouldn't. They should need care, but they should give something they got to.

Ivo Ivanov (00:44:24):

Yeah, so it's not just neighborhood, it's like a share hood for a

Mike Strouse (00:44:29):

Yeah, it is. Yeah. It's a share system and the reality is when you're looking at cost, which is obviously a factor, how much assisted living costs, it can cost eight to $10,000 a month. It's crazy.

Ivo Ivanov (00:44:46):

I know

Mike Strouse (00:44:47):

How much that can cost. Why don't we leverage family support? Why don't we leverage natural support? Why don't we leverage volunteers helping each other? Our job is to organize that, and that takes a lot of effort.

Ivo Ivanov (00:45:02):

Oh yeah. It's not easy.

Mike Strouse (00:45:03):

But also when there's gaps of what they can't do, that's where you can infuse things that are paid.

Mike Strouse (00:45:14):

You

Mike Strouse (00:45:14):

Go back in time to where families took care of seniors, right? Well, now people grow up and have children that grow up and they want them to be on their own, but they still need support. They may have an intellectual disability or they may have a physical disability or something out there as a young adult. They want 'em to live on their own, but they have gaps. Like I always said, my mother and father in the last part of their life, between the two of 'em, they could do 90% of the things they needed to live. They couldn't do 10%, and those 10% were intermittent and unpredictable, so they had to trade 90% of their independence for a hundred percent care. We can't afford that. We don't have enough caregivers. We can't afford it, and nobody wants to spend their life savings that way. So what if we looked at this as pyramid system? Let's look at what families can do as they help each other. Let's look at what volunteers can do. Let's look at how we can infuse purpose, where everybody helps everybody, and then let's just fill the gaps in. Let's just fill the gaps in. Then all of a sudden you got a system that costs 20% of all these other things, right?

Ivo Ivanov (00:46:28):

Yeah.

Mike Strouse (00:46:29):

I was talking to a managed care company the other day. They're really great people. They're very innovative in they're thought process and they're very open to what we're doing and supportive of it. But the end result is they were really challenging because actually what we were doing, Ivo, is we were taking the people who were on Medicaid and heat mapping them and looking at, in Wichita for example, we found almost 500 people in urban area of Wichita that were receiving home-based supports of one sort or another of which all of them were not connected, no sharing. There's no, they're all individually done. None of the others existed as an example, they may have people hired to support them at night working eight to 10 hours only for them for night needs that may happen once or twice a night or once or twice a week, and they were paying $120 a person per night for that support. And so we were heat mapping all those people and we found out, well, we can provide a shared system for that and within five minutes of need, 10 minutes of need, we can be meeting those needs. We just have to have the number, what the needs are. It's a logistics nightmare. I'm not going to kid you on that. It's a logistics nightmare. But you go to, my son went to University of Arkansas. There literally are degrees. Degrees that get master's degrees you get in logistics.

Ivo Ivanov (00:48:23):

Yeah, absolutely.

Mike Strouse (00:48:24):

The world now is logistics. You walk down the street and there's these huge buildings in their logistic warehouses. They're logistics centers, they're beehives, Walmart, everybody, all they want Amazon, all they want are logistics people. That's what we're talking about. We're talking about the massive logistics project here where you're taking need at night or need through the day or community inclusion need simple things for the most part, simple care, simple support. They're not

Mike Strouse (00:48:57):

Complicated,

Mike Strouse (00:48:59):

But it has to be delivered in ways that are sort of organized and quick and shared. It's funny because when you go out in the community, you just talk like this and somebody said, well, I don't want to share my staff. I don't want to share them. Or you want to share your ride. You don't want to pay 10,000 a month. You want to share everything else. You're in assisted living. You share everything, but you can't afford not sharing. You just don't want to do it the way that people think out here it is got to be done better.

Ivo Ivanov (00:49:43):

And

Mike Strouse (00:49:43):

That's where we created, we invented our technologies that connect everybody that's remote support and have somebody can virtually staff that can check in on people. They can be self-directed. The reality of the connective tissue is technology. You don't create a facility by walls. You create a connective community digitally. That's what you do. So Amazon does it. Uber does it. We do it, and it is done by the use of a platform of technologies, not consumer-based stuff. I mean we're going to talk about that too, not in this podcast, but one of my favorite people is Veronica St. Seer.

Ivo Ivanov (00:50:40):

Yes.

Mike Strouse (00:50:41):

And she didn't invent, but she is sort of marketing and is the spokesperson of a technology called Navigating Life, and that is think of Facebook, but simple. And that's sort of a restricted access where you could socially connect people and people can have purpose online where they're taking pictures of stuff and they're talking about their day. They all have stories. Every one of us has stories in that neighborhood and they're using navigating life to post their journey and their stories or to say they need some resources or to offer purpose to somebody else or to do all those sort of things. We're going to have her on, she's going to describe navigating life, but that's our technology, her technology, whole series of things that we got to do to take that. Those 500 people in Wichita where we take the 2000 people here in Lenexa that are aging seniors and stop this notion that everybody's on an island and create sort of the next Norman Rockwell community where we do a really good job of connecting people so that they can have a platform for their purpose. They can get the support they need. They can feel like they belong somewhere, but more importantly than anything else, they're independent. They're living their own life, they're telling their own story, they're not moving to a store for care.

Ivo Ivanov (00:52:25):

That got me thinking about why great things don't happen. Look at the five blue zones around the world, why in the world there are only five? Why there's places with better air. There are places with greater potential than those five blue zones, but they don't happen. And you look at the components that are necessary. Yeah, there are places that have great resources, human resources, great employees, potentially great technologies right there stores. What's lacking is logistics. It's what is Airbnb or Uber, but logistics. It's logistics. It's connecting the dots and that explains the existence of the logistics industrial complex that you were talking about.

Mike Strouse (00:53:14):

It's necessary mean. The entire world is that I used to do, my kids did horse shows all across the country. They're really big in equestrian stuff. And the Houston Stock Show, for example, has like 15,000 participants in

Mike Strouse (00:53:31):

It

Mike Strouse (00:53:32):

From all parts of the country for 30 days. They all come down there with their little horses and their resources and stuff, and they create this community and stuff. Well, now it was interesting. We thought about it at the time, logistics.

Ivo Ivanov (00:53:47):

That's it.

Mike Strouse (00:53:48):

Talking about bringing resources to need. All these people would come down there, but they really didn't want to stay in hotels because they had to be by their livestock and had to be accessible to that. Well, you know what the number one stored big item is in the country? RVs, they're stored 90% of the time. You used 10% of the

Ivo Ivanov (00:54:15):

That's true, that's true.

Mike Strouse (00:54:17):

You had Airbnbs and all of a sudden somebody thought, Hey, here's the Houston stock show. They have 15,000 people that want to stay there, and there's these stored resources there. Well, they connected that in the same way and then all of a sudden and now outdoorsy goes out and they do the same thing with state parks. They put these things in and they rent a RV slot in a state park, and instead of me having their own rv, which I do, but I can drive my vehicle to Yellowstone and walk into an RV that's waiting for me and I can walk out of it and leave and they pick it up and they go

Ivo Ivanov (00:55:07):

Logistics.

Mike Strouse (00:55:08):

It's logistics.

Ivo Ivanov (00:55:09):

Perfect. Entropy is the tendency of everything in the universe to move apart to tendency towards disorder. Perfect example is my garage, probably everybody's garage. But what logistic does is eliminates entropy. It brings things into order and great expertise and great effort is required for this because universes against you. So you need a logistics expert to put things

Mike Strouse (00:55:36):

Together. Well, actually we do, but we kind of have some, but I am going to tell my listing owners, just send us money. I mean, we are logistic expert. We are. That's what we do. The fuel tank keeps running dry on all these projects, but fill it up, go to our website and I feel like now I'm doing the recruitment for that. But the reality is we are so close, so close to creating a methodology, call it a neighborhood network. We can call it all kinds of cool stuff, but to support organic populations of need, give them purpose, leverage the support that they have in layers of freeness to layers of expense. And then organizing not just the care resources, but it's resources of nurses for care. It could be maintenance folks to people who need help with their homes. It is transportation resources. I mean organizing the care.

(00:56:45):

And the thing is why this connects causes problems for the marketing team. Normally there's traditional ways for marketing, but we're really having to do almost like neighborhood marketing. We're farming very small geographic areas to try to identify the need and the resources. When we did the first neighborhood network where we actually created everything and it kind of infused the neighborhood with resources instead of going finding the resources in the neighborhood, we did that and it was really successful. It won the international awards for it. People visited to this day, twice a month all over the country. So it is a cool model,

(00:57:35):

But example, we have professional neighbors. We said that live there. We do what traditional people do. We'd advertise on Indeed for people who would like to live this life, we would hire them, we'd move them into the neighborhood and we would pay for them to live there. We not only pay 'em a salary but pay for the entire house for them to live in the neighborhood they're supporting. And by the way, we always showed that that was cost effective to do that. We could deploy them and stuff. But I got to thinking, well surely in those thousands of people in that block area, there are people who would love to be caregivers. We learned through all the analysis that we've done, research that we've done, that people want to work close to home. They want to work from home, they want to work close to home.

(00:58:29):

That 65 of all people looking for a job right now want hybrid work, hybrid, remote, direct work. Well, if instead of trying to recruit somebody and convince them to move to our neighborhood, if we can figure out how to identify people in the neighborhood that already provide care, so instead of just paying a salary for them too is one thing, but I don't have to pay for $25,000 a year for their house and their lease and all that. Why can't I just give them a stipend? They're already living there. I just have to pay him a stipend so now I can have even more professional neighbors than I otherwise could have. So I have more Uber drivers other things. So it's just a whole, you start getting this insight as you do it. And that's why I say, do I know how to do a blue zone? I think I know how to do a aqua blue zone, not a blue zone. Yes. I haven't found the fountain of Youth yet.

Ivo Ivanov (00:59:43):

No navy blue zone yet.

Mike Strouse (00:59:45):

Nothing that deep that no. Or like a powder blue zone. But when we did that, I thought that was the bees knees. You and I looked at those places before it ever happened. We got that insight together.

(00:59:59):

But the reality is once I did it, I realized that was pretty good, but not good enough. And the good enough we think is that quest we talked about. It's that never ending journey and you ended up getting up on top of a hill and what do you see? But another hill that's even cooler. Well, there's two types of people in the world. There are settlers and there's pioneers. That's just the two type. Some people get on top of the hill and they want to settle. You have the institution and they have group homes and some people settled for the group homes, and then you got into home-based care and you settled for the home-based care and then you got, there's always something better. So my belief is we're on this never ending journey for a blue zone. If we ever, ever were able to create one Ivo, we would find another color.

(01:00:58):

And I love that about us and I love that about that's the culture we want to have. But you got to look at that next thing. We got kind of the six month window of all this stuff that we want to create. I look forward six months and I wrote a paper of what it looked like because that's how I like to do things. I like that. What would it look like as best from this vista that I can see? Let's look six months down the road or a year down the road and let's pretend we're already there and let's at least try to imagine what life would look like if we did everything. You can call the division statement, but in reality, it's a strategic plan, right?

Mike Strouse (01:01:42):

Yes.

Mike Strouse (01:01:42):

That looks down the road a year and says, okay, this is what we can expect to accomplish in six months to create something. Knowing everything we know, at least now of what it will look like. That gives us a better life. We have this idea of what Blue Zone is. We have a community. We know we need to connect the need. We know we need to start organizing that need and we start need to delivering services and it's all on the back of technologies and here's the improvements that we can make through the technology and make it better. And last night, four in the morning always I got up because I couldn't sleep. It was really, I was thinking of the podcast to be honest with you, and it was what we were going to talk about, but I also was perseverating on some technology stuff and technology by itself, it doesn't mean a lot, it's how it's used. I really wanted to always focus on the model. What's the care and support and life support model that you use to improve people's life? What is that model? Because that model includes the combination of things which include technology, but it also includes the service delivery system. It includes the logistics,

(01:03:11):

The technology makes a new models possible, but you really got to focus on the care approach, the service approach. The neighborhood network was built on what current technology made possible, but as soon as you did it, the neighborhood network, we could start seeing, okay, technology doesn't allow what I really want to do, so we got to change technology to make even more possible. So that's kind where we are now.

(01:03:44):

Like smart home technology, for example, is smart at the home level, but we want it smart at the individual level, beacon technology and wave technology. And there's all these other innovations that are used in others. In fact, last night I saw one that was used in the manufacturing industry that if done differently would be perfect for what we're doing. So that's just how it evolves. So anyway, it's going to go on for another 10 years and everything's kind of exploding in technology, but you can't have technology dictated. You got to have the needs dictate. The technology care has to be organized and neighborhood need and resources need to be organized, and you need to start farming that neighborhood for the resources like professional neighbors instead of infuse them, find the nurses, find the assets that already exist there, not just the needs exist, but the assets and get the logistics going on. All of that. But the technology needs to stop being sort of consumer based technology and be more organizational.

Ivo Ivanov (01:04:58):

Excellent. This was a great conversation and we will continue this conversation. No doubt. There's so much more to unpack on this topic, but we are pushing against our limit,

Mike Strouse (01:05:12):

But you never answered me. Ivo, are you're going to help me be famous. I want to be a blue man.

Ivo Ivanov (01:05:20):

You will be a blue man's blue zone man. For sure. There's no stopping you at this point. It's obvious.

Mike Strouse (01:05:26):

I say we get the Blue Man group just as a fun thing and we do a podcast with them.

Ivo Ivanov (01:05:32):

Let's do it.

Mike Strouse (01:05:33):

All these people that don't talk, we're going to do a nonverbal podcast. It'll be a sensation. I can just see it.

Ivo Ivanov (01:05:41):

Yeah, I can't wait. We thank you for being with us on a quest for the GoodLife. Our inability to remain concise, of course, is completely intentional. This episode was produced by Megan Olafson. Your host was the first busy M blue zone man, Dr. Michael Strouse. Everything else was my fault. As usual, we will return in a couple of weeks.