Happier Talks: Reimagining Elder Care with Christian Ross
A better way to treat older adults
Christian Ross is the Chief Happiness Officer and Founder of Happy Talks, a platform that helps combat loneliness in seniors by providing consistent phone calls from trained conversationalists. She’s an accomplished professional in the real estate space and brings a hospitality mindset to her work and relationships.
We discussed the need for Happy Talks, common challenges that adults (and their families) experience they age, and what advice she’d have for anyone listening with an aging parent.
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Christian is lending her vivacious spirit to combat loneliness and improve quality of life for seniors in a way that's truly worth celebrating. Her solution is exactly the type of innovation we need in elder care. Being around Christian is inspiring and fills my cup - I'm glad we got to share her story with you.
Episode overview:
Christian is the founder of Happy Talks, a company that provides social phone calls for older adults to help combat loneliness and isolation. They offer regular calls, handwritten notes, and gift boxes to make seniors feel seen and heard.
Christian discusses challenges facing older adults, including fraud targeting seniors, the need for better technological solutions in healthcare coordination, and the importance of human connection.
She shares insights on the "aging in place" trend, the pros and cons of senior living communities, and the need for families to have difficult conversations about end-of-life care and legal preparations early on.
During the back half of the interview we delved into broader societal issues like caregiver burnout, challenges faced by the "sandwich generation" with young kids and aging parents, and debates around assisted suicide and end-of-life choices.
Christian is lending her vivacious spirit to combat loneliness and improve quality of life for seniors in a way that's truly worth celebrating. Her solution is exactly the type of innovation we need in elder care. Being around Christian fills my cup - I'm glad we get to share her story with you. Please find the episode linked below:
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🧠 Big Question:
Can technology ease the labor challenge of the ‘silver tsunami?’
There's a lot written about our aging population, especially the impact on healthcare costs and social security spending. Christian points to a less-discussed issue: a looming labor crisis in senior care.
Caretaking is relatively low-cost, physically intensive, can be emotionally burdensome — and the demand for workers is set to explode.
Christian is part of the AgeTech community at Atlanta Technology Village, where entrepreneurs and technologists are focusing on helping people age well.
Innovations range from hallway lights that automatically illuminate to prevent falls, to strength training classes for older adults like Vivo (which I profiled previously), to isolation-reducing services like Happy Talks.
This space is becoming increasingly important, and Atlanta is poised to make unique contributions.
Christian emphasizes that while technology can enhance senior care, human connection remains irreplaceable. She's optimistic about tech freeing up time for more meaningful interactions - for instance, robots could handle food delivery (and eventually, food prep), allowing caregivers to focus on personal care and companionship.
She also sees potential in VR for helping seniors relive memories or visit places, but stresses these should complement, not replace, real human interaction.
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💡 Bold Idea:
We *all* need to take fraud prevention for seniors seriously
A dark side of AI is that it makes scamming people easier. Seniors are especially vulnerable - and were defrauded to the tune of $3 billion last year alone.
With just a brief snippet of your voice, a scammer can convince an older adult you're in trouble and need emergency money.
Christian implores us all to have safe words, practice using them, and treat them as inviolable. These words can be written down in secret spots if needed, but there must be a family safeguard in place.
I don’t know about you, but I tend to be lax with this kind of stuff. I hope it doesn’t take getting burned to whip us into shape.
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🎯 Better Living
Have end-of-life conversations "while everyone can still laugh about it"
Too often, families wait to make decisions about things like power of attorney until after a dementia diagnosis. At that point, it's too late, and authority defaults to the state.
No one wants to have these conversations, but waiting can have serious consequences.
Christian counsels adults in the "sandwich generation" - those with both young kids and aging parents - to make it a collective conversation.
She suggests saying: "Hey, we're doing some life and family planning, getting our stuff together. Can we all do this together? Mom and dad, where are your papers?"
Make it a joint exercise that everyone completes together - and then celebrate afterwards!
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Questions for reflection:
Do you and/or your parents have directives naming your power of attorney? Do you have a will? If not, what's stopping you? When's the next time you could address this?
Note I’m guilty as heck here - need to get mine in order.
If you've walked with someone through their later stage of life, what were their favorite things they enjoyed in those years? What helped prevent feelings of loneliness and isolation?
Once again, please find the episode linked here: